Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) for Windows 7

With Microsoft focused on Windows 8, it's no surprise that Internet Explorer 10, the company's latest Web browser version, made its way into that operating system first. But now Windows 7 users can take advantage of this faster and far more standards-compliant browser. Externally, upgraders may not notice any difference at all between IE9 and IE10 for Windows 7, but rest assured: a whole lot of improvements appear under the hood.

Internet Explorer has long been a whipping boy among browsers. IE6 was perhaps the most reviled browser in history, thanks to its non-standard quirks that Web developers had to navigate around to get their sites working correctly. People forget, though, that the point of this non-standard behavior was rooted in offering new power to websites, and earlier versions of IE actually first enabled Web 2.0 (with the first support for AJAX)?where sites become more interactive and app-like.

Despite that, even IE7 and 8 long trailed newcomers Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome in JavaScript performance and support for new standards. IE9 improved things on the first count drastically, but still fell short in support for all the new capabilities of HTML5 which promises to give websites near parity with installed applications.

With Internet Explorer 10, Microsoft's browser need no longer be an object of derision. The company has actually launched a disparaging ad campaign admitting its past offences and urging users to give it another try. I, too, think users would be well advised to do this: They may discover that IE actually feels faster and looks cleaner than what they've been using. And its leading privacy protection tools, including the controversial default enabling of Do Not Track and a powerful Tracking Protection tool, will appeal to those who'd rather not have large ad companies creating a detailed profile of all their Web activity. Just install Firefox's Collusion or the Ghostery add-in (available for all major browsers) for an idea of just how extensive the tracking is?especially scary is that much of it's done by sites you never even intentionally visited.

The improvements in Internet Explorer seem to be starting to resonate with the public: after steadily losing usage share for several years, the browser is starting to make a comeback. According to data from NetMarketShare, a division of Net Applications focused on Internet usage statistics, IE rose from a low of 51.87 percent usage share in December 2011 to nearly 56 percent in February of 2013. Of course that's not a huge move compared with Google Chrome's rise, but the trend seems to have changed, with the newcomer actually falling from its high of 19.58 percent in May '12 down to 16.27 percent in Feb. 2013.

Installing and?Upgrading
Internet Explorer 10 drops support for older versions of Windows: It only runs on Windows 7 and 8?no Vista, forget XP. It does, however run on Windows?Server?2008?R2 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) 64-bit, so IT staff can take advantage of its advances. If you're still running a 10-year old OS, ?consider this: Would you still use a 10-year-old cell phone? Upgrade already! If you meet the criteria, just head to IETestdrive.com. The update isn?t as snappy as updating Firefox or Chrome, taking several minutes, and on some systems a reboot, since it?s actually a Windows update. And note that means that you can't try it out alongside IE9--you've got to commit.

Interface
Window 8 users have quite a few interface leaps to make with the new-style version of IE10?just the fact that there are two flavors of the browser?the new full-screen, touch-friendly one and the mouse-friendly desktop flavor?may take some time to wrap your head around. But in Windows 7, users of Internet Explorer 9 won't be facing any interface surprises at all. IE10 looks identical to IE9, except for a couple of very subtle changes. One of these is that the scrollbars have been redesigned with a Windows 8 look. I'll touch on the rest below.

Window and controls. As a refresher on the IE interface: It's as trim as it gets, giving more area to the Web page contents and the least to the browser's own interface features. Controls are kept to a single row with the address and search boxes combined into one. This box can seem too small, but luckily you can drag its edge with the mouse to enlarge it. I actually prefer Firefox and Opera's separate search boxes, since searching and address entry are, to me, two different operations. The sparse controls in IE10 aren't as drastic as Google's reduction to a single menu icon, and you can still enable IE's menus and toolbars, by right-clicking on the top window border.

Tabs. Microsoft improved how tabs work in IE9, and the improvements remain in IE10. You can drag tabs out of and back into your browser window to create new windows. The browser even can do a couple cool tricks with dragging tabs to a new window: If you do so while playing a video, the video continues to play as you drag it. Also, when you drag to the left or right edge of the screen in Windows 7, the new browser window created fills exactly half of the screen. This is as it should be?adhering to the Snap feature in Windows 7?but other browsers don't do this.

The tab with the focus is brighter, making it stand out. I appreciate that I can close a tab without switching to it, as I can in every other modern browser. But this only works if the window was sized large enough?nearly full screen on a laptop. Since IE crams everything on one row?the address/search box, tabs, and controls?tabs can get mighty narrow. But there's some help for that: You can place IE's tabs on their own row?separate from the search box?if you find you're opening too many to fit, and arrows appear on either side of the tab bar if you open too many tabs to display in the allotted space.

New-tab page. The new-tab page helpfully shows your most frequently visited pages, but you can hide these if you'd rather not have everyone seeing some sites you frequent. The new-tab page now has a gray background, making the tiles for your frequently visited sites stand out more. It also lets you reopen closed tabs or your whole last session, or you can start InPrivate browsing from it. There's also a small "Discover other sites you might like" link there and link at the bottom which encourages you to use the Suggested sites feature. It suggested MySpace to me?hardly new!

A couple of new goodies. A subtle new interface tweak for IE10 lets you close many tabs from same X spot on the tab bar?you don't have to move the cursor. And finally, Internet Explorer gets a built-in spelling checker!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/rJXe3riYJoY/0,2817,2416300,00.asp

alec time 100 bob beckel anna paquin warren buffett 2012 nfl schedule dishonored