Impact of Microsoft IE7 browser

Microsoft Internet Explorer had lost me more than 2 years ago (or whenever the FireFox browser first came out)… but today, I upgraded my MSIE 6.xx browser to the new IE 7.

You might ask, Why bother with Microsoft IE 7 if we’re perfectly happy with Mozilla FireFox?

The first reason is the same one you should have if you don’t have it already: To see how our/your websites look like in the new browser and review any visual oddities that may need some HTML code adjustments just in case IE7 becomes the world browser standard.

I’m excited about IE7 for quite a few reasons, none of which have to do with me switching back to IE instead of FireFox (because that ain’t gonna happen just yet).

1) First, did you notice that IE7 looks nearly identical to FireFox? This is a good thing because it means the IE7 dev team was probably using FireFox when they developed their version of it. (Shhh, it’ll be our little secret.)
2) I expect IE7 to give Microsoft’s LIVE and/or MSN portal an off-the-scale boost in traffic (look at the charts for the past year) because it’ll be the default search engine in IE7. Yes, I already changed my IE7 to Google for the default SE (duh :-) and added Yahoo and a few others to it, but I’m not confident the masses will care to improve the quality of their IE7 browser to include a better quality search engine (Sorry MSFT). This will give Microsoft’s search engine a rise in query volume by critical masses who will default with it…and thus, elevate their importance.

I have not seen Googles marketing yet to help educate IE7 users to add them to the search defaults, but I’ve seen Yahoo doing a lot of direct-to-member marketing to convert to a Yahoo branded IE7.

3) EzineArticles expert author Matt Ambrose summed up my feelings on the gigantinormic impact (that’s a word I just made up) of how IE7 is going to move RSS forward into the mainstream. Read Matt’s article: Internet Explorer 7 = RSS Consumption Explosion

Our tens of thousands of EzineArticles RSS feeds are single handedly responsible for MILLIONS of page views of annual traffic already… and the best part: The traffic is HIGHLY pre-qualified! Read this paragraph a few times and then go make sure you have your own RSS feeds available on your site. This is huge people! :-)

Out of 10, I give the new Microsoft Internet Explorer version 7 a score of 7 out of 10 stars… and I think they might actually have a shot at stopping some of the massive user erosion that has gone to FireFox, Opera and other browsers.

To help you on your IE7 education, check out Joseph M. Pisano’s article on “IE7, Quick Guide to What’s New With Internet Explorer 7 and Handy Shortcuts”

Browser Useage By Users/Surfers of EzineArticles.com:

For the month of November so far, the users of EzineArticles.com are using the following browsers:

74.5% MS IE
14.5% FireFox
3.1% to Safari
.7% to Netscape
…and .5% to Opera.

Of the 74.5% that are surfing EzineArticles with MS IE, 7.2% of them are ALREADY using version 7! 65.7% are using MSIE 6.0, .3% are using MSIE 5.01, .2% are using MSIE 5.0, and the rest are somewhere in between.

What’s your take on the new MS IE 7?

Posted by Christopher M. Knight on November 24, 2006 at 2:35 pm | 4,016 views

7 Comments »

Cynthia McKenna LPC, NCC writes:

Thanks Chris,
I never thought I would give up Mozilla, but I’ll check this out.
Cynthia

Comment provided November 24, 2006 at 3:25 PM

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Ed Howes writes:

gigantinormic: normally exceedingly large. Please let us know how often IE7 will be upgraded for security as it occurs. The number of people who have stayed with IE is quite surprising, if EzineArticles stats are a fair sample. The response from MS competitors ought to be very interesting. Perhaps you can keep us posted on this as well, or at least supply relevant links from time to time.

Comment provided November 24, 2006 at 3:38 PM

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Susan Scharfman writes:

Unfortunately it’s irrelevant for MAC users.

Comment provided November 26, 2006 at 8:21 AM

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Laura Goodwin writes:

I installed IE7 on the laptop, and am enjoying it. I split my time between IE and FF on the desktop, but use IE more since stats have continued to show most of my visitors are using IE.

Comment provided November 26, 2006 at 12:32 PM

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Carla Laidler writes:

I have been using IE7 for a couple of weeks now. The features are really good but i am amazed at how much it drains my pc. Previously i could have a handful of programs running alongside IE with no problem but since using IE7 if i have any other apps open, the browser just hangs.

I used to enjoy using Opera (which IE7 is also similar to) but i stopped because of this same problem, CPU usage. I guess you cant have a browser with all the frills and not expect to pay for it somewhere along the line!

Comment provided November 28, 2006 at 2:28 AM

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