I've lived with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 for almost six months, using it daily. I like it, and it's gotten better with each of the three beta releases I've looked at. That said, I can't say I like it better than the current versions of Firefox or Opera, as these two just continue to display more innovation. It's not that they're extraordinarily superior to IE7 in terms of features; it's that the new Microsoft browser doesn't have any new features that are compelling enough to put it at the forefront. IE7 also continues to show some teething pains that, frankly, I don't expect in a beta this far along the development path.

Before I go into details about what bothered me here, let me take a moment to explain exactly what version of IE7 I'm talking about here, because there's more than one. The version of IE7 to be bundled with Microsoft Vista will be known as IE7+. This new beta, the one I've tested here, is the one that will be used with Windows XP SP2; it's now known as IE7 for XP. Based both on contacts with Microsoft representatives and recent postings to the IE developer blog, we know that the code for the two browsers is largely the same and that they have mostly the same features, though the final version for Vista will have some Vista-only features, including enhanced network diagnostic abilities, Protected Mode, and parental controls.

Internet Explorer 7.0 for Windows XP Beta 3 seems a minor evolution with incremental feature and cosmetic improvements over Beta 2. The mo