IE 7 Vs Firefox 2.0
The wait for IE to join the league of the more easy-to-use, feature-rich browsers is over. While Firefox just entered the ring with many already popular browsers to compete with, it still managed to capture a good percentage of the market in a comparatively short span of time. IE has remained the most used browser ever since its version 5 release with Windows 98. Firefox began penetrating right from day one of its release. Now both IE and Firefox have come out with a new version. For IE it has been a leap, while for Firefox it's just been a hop-over from its already evolved product to a more evolved version. Just lately, we did a feature of the Firefox 2 beta, you can have a look at here . Firefox 2 hasn't changed much from its beta release; so, talking much about it would just be a mere repetition. We will look a lot more at IE 7 and compare the two briefly. Let's kick off this concise feature about these two browsers as they battle it out for market share.
Looks
The looks of IE 7 have been bumped up to feel all fresh and new. It's basically the Vista look and feel. This isn't a beauty contest, but that's what Microsoft personally feels making most of the changes to the whole of Vista family, mostly cosmetic. IE7, being a part of Vista, has also undergone cosmetic changes, and at the same time has even become a lot more feature-rich than its previous version.
This version of IE gives that all-clear look. If you keep a window of IE 7 open beside a window of IE 6, you will notice the changes and for all you know you might just not be able to tell if it's IE in the first place.
That's unless you have seen or had a peek at Vista. IE 7 is better-looking than Firefox 2 (default skin) but that's not the only thing we actually want at the end of the day. While IE flaunts all the beauty, Firefox on the other hand hasn't changed much in terms of looks to make it look more cool.
Its previous version was very plain and simple and we all liked it. The newer version, looking at the competition, has the use of make-up and has done a few minor touch-up jobs. The buttons are neatly rounded off giving the button-bar a sweet look and at the same time has maintained its simplicity. IE 7, with its Vista look, has an all glass theme, the buttons and the whole look has been changed so that it syncs well with Vista. There is no doubt that IE 7 is better-looking, but Firefox with its simple beauty will still continue to capture more users.
Interface
After reading about the looks of both browsers, it would be best to talk about the interface. The opinion on interface is going to be different from person to person. While for some, it will be really easy; for the others, they will just walk away from it saying that "it's really not my type". The interface of IE has been upgraded; oh! no it's just a mere face-lift. Actually, it's the look that has changed and the change in look has made the minor differences in interface. IE has very limited customization. You have to agree that the default organization of the menus and bars is as good as it can get for IE.
Firefox is open to a lot of customizations and the screenshots of Firefox used throughout the review will show that it offers more view at one time than IE. It's not very drastic, but Firefox shows a couple more lines, which make a lot of difference to people who do a lot of online reading. Even though the Menu bar in IE 7 is gone missing, it can be accessed by pressing the Alt key. It still falls short of customizing it further to have a lot of matter viewed at a glance. The only way to increase the content at a glance would be by zooming out; we will talk about the zoom feature later. This would jus drop the size of the text making it hard on your eyes; even in Firefox it can be done and it would end up showing still more content but at the same cost of your eyes.
IE 7 has a whole new setup of history and favorites. It's completely redone. The favorites and history have been merged in a single drop-down box. In the drop-down box, they are separated into tabs and there is a new addition, an RSS feeds tab. The history search is still available; you have to choose from a small drop-down beside the history tab.
The Menu bar, as I said earlier, is invisible and can be seen after pressing the Alt key. There are a set of buttons to the end of the Tab bar, which can't be moved any where else except you can make it drop down to the end. This has a plus point; I'll discuss in the next section because it has more relevance there.
The best part is that the basic shortcuts have been kept as standard. So, there is no need to get used to a new set of shortcuts. Opening/closing Tabs/Windows and even switching between tabs are standard. Apart from that, minor changes are acceptable and which are likely to differ from browser to browser.
The wait for IE to join the league of the more easy-to-use, feature-rich browsers is over. While Firefox just entered the ring with many already popular browsers to compete with, it still managed to capture a good percentage of the market in a comparatively short span of time. IE has remained the most used browser ever since its version 5 release with Windows 98. Firefox began penetrating right from day one of its release. Now both IE and Firefox have come out with a new version. For IE it has been a leap, while for Firefox it's just been a hop-over from its already evolved product to a more evolved version. Just lately, we did a feature of the Firefox 2 beta, you can have a look at here . Firefox 2 hasn't changed much from its beta release; so, talking much about it would just be a mere repetition. We will look a lot more at IE 7 and compare the two briefly. Let's kick off this concise feature about these two browsers as they battle it out for market share.
Looks
The looks of IE 7 have been bumped up to feel all fresh and new. It's basically the Vista look and feel. This isn't a beauty contest, but that's what Microsoft personally feels making most of the changes to the whole of Vista family, mostly cosmetic. IE7, being a part of Vista, has also undergone cosmetic changes, and at the same time has even become a lot more feature-rich than its previous version.
This version of IE gives that all-clear look. If you keep a window of IE 7 open beside a window of IE 6, you will notice the changes and for all you know you might just not be able to tell if it's IE in the first place.
That's unless you have seen or had a peek at Vista. IE 7 is better-looking than Firefox 2 (default skin) but that's not the only thing we actually want at the end of the day. While IE flaunts all the beauty, Firefox on the other hand hasn't changed much in terms of looks to make it look more cool.
Its previous version was very plain and simple and we all liked it. The newer version, looking at the competition, has the use of make-up and has done a few minor touch-up jobs. The buttons are neatly rounded off giving the button-bar a sweet look and at the same time has maintained its simplicity. IE 7, with its Vista look, has an all glass theme, the buttons and the whole look has been changed so that it syncs well with Vista. There is no doubt that IE 7 is better-looking, but Firefox with its simple beauty will still continue to capture more users.
Interface
After reading about the looks of both browsers, it would be best to talk about the interface. The opinion on interface is going to be different from person to person. While for some, it will be really easy; for the others, they will just walk away from it saying that "it's really not my type". The interface of IE has been upgraded; oh! no it's just a mere face-lift. Actually, it's the look that has changed and the change in look has made the minor differences in interface. IE has very limited customization. You have to agree that the default organization of the menus and bars is as good as it can get for IE.
Firefox is open to a lot of customizations and the screenshots of Firefox used throughout the review will show that it offers more view at one time than IE. It's not very drastic, but Firefox shows a couple more lines, which make a lot of difference to people who do a lot of online reading. Even though the Menu bar in IE 7 is gone missing, it can be accessed by pressing the Alt key. It still falls short of customizing it further to have a lot of matter viewed at a glance. The only way to increase the content at a glance would be by zooming out; we will talk about the zoom feature later. This would jus drop the size of the text making it hard on your eyes; even in Firefox it can be done and it would end up showing still more content but at the same cost of your eyes.
IE 7 has a whole new setup of history and favorites. It's completely redone. The favorites and history have been merged in a single drop-down box. In the drop-down box, they are separated into tabs and there is a new addition, an RSS feeds tab. The history search is still available; you have to choose from a small drop-down beside the history tab.
The Menu bar, as I said earlier, is invisible and can be seen after pressing the Alt key. There are a set of buttons to the end of the Tab bar, which can't be moved any where else except you can make it drop down to the end. This has a plus point; I'll discuss in the next section because it has more relevance there.
The best part is that the basic shortcuts have been kept as standard. So, there is no need to get used to a new set of shortcuts. Opening/closing Tabs/Windows and even switching between tabs are standard. Apart from that, minor changes are acceptable and which are likely to differ from browser to browser.
