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Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) on October 18, 2006. It is an improvement over prior versions but I recommend that you wait to install it for at least two months.

I recommend that most computer users always wait on installing new versions of software. I often tell my clients that I am a businessman first and a technologist second. I love to play with all the new toys that technology brings me. That does not mean they are appropriate or ready for home and business use.

For example, when my clients ask me about Windows Vista, Microsoft’s upcoming successor to Windows XP, I advise that they wait at least one year from the official release date before considering an upgrade. I recommend this long wait because there will be residual software issues that need to be worked out before the system can be used without problem. The specific problems I envision are program incompatibility and the lack of hardware drivers. The lack of hardware drivers means that your existing printer or scanner may not work and may never work with Vista. You may have to upgrade more than your operating system if you install Vista prematurely.

So why should you wait for IE7? After all, it has gone through many months of development and beta testing. It is not expected to create any issues with existing hardware. In fact its printing functions are touted as much better than the older versions. IE7 supposedly allows you to print without cutting off the last few letters or words on long lines as often happens in earlier versions. So why wait?

Not all websites work on IE7. For instance, when I try to sign in at vonage.com IE7 crashes and closes. Firefox 1.5 and IE6 do not crash on this website. I suspect there are many other sites with which IE7 has problems. I have read reports from other people about site specific problems and software incompatibilities. Let others be the guinea pigs who find out about these problems and alert the websites.

What are the benefits of IE7? It has entered the modern browser era by adding tabbed browsing. It has a simplified toolbar and a hidden menu. It has an improved interface for add-ons. Microsoft has added an anti-phishing feature at the expense of some of your privacy. Microsoft has integrated RSS, which will matter to you if you know what that is and use it. And they have integrated search so that you do not need to install a separate toolbar.

These are nice improvements but not innovative. It seems like the free browsers Maxthon, Opera and Mozilla Firefox have had tabbed browsing for years. They allow for RSS integration and have search bar integration. Firefox and Opera have anti-phishing. So nothing is really new or exciting about IE7. Microsoft is just catching up and not yet there. I have used all three alternatives and can confidently recommend them as better than Internet Explorer including version 7.

So let the websites that designed for the web standards non-compliant earlier versions of Internet Explorer catch up before you consider downloading and installing Internet Explorer 7. If you just have to have it, you can get IE7 at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx.

Oh yeah, you will have to prove that your version of Windows is not pirated before Microsoft will let you download the program.