Is IE 7 faster & really more secure than IE 6?

Although I don't know much about this subject, you might be interested in my recent experience. About a month ago after I downloaded IE7, it would not work on this computer. ( I normally use Mozilla Firefox, but occasionally must use IE5.5 or better to work on the community web site.) My wife's laptop, which still uses IE6 and a dial-up connection could access the community web site. Finally I called AT&T tech support to see why IE7 would not work with my DSL connection. They suggested I uninstall IE7, which I did; they had me check and uncheck a few boxes in IE6, and now everything is fine. That is what happened. That is all I know.
Oldchris

No one needs to have the same PC to evaluate if IE 7 is faster than IE 6: is IE 7 is faster than IE 6 on a specific machine, in normal circumstances (no virus, spyware, etc.) IE 7 will be faster than IE 6 in every machine.

In security it's better compared to IE 6 and, actually, to any other browser (Symantec and Secunia proved it). The fact that it's vastly more used than any other web browser does make it be the prime target for exploit but that in no way makes security a forgone conclusion.

The only spyware I get browsing with IE 7 is a couple of tracking cookies a day that I would much probably get with any other web browser too anyway, so I would recommend you to better educate yourself regarding IE 7 before commenting on it and advicing people against using it.

Fil

Trident, the IE rendering engine, received a fairly dramatic overhaul in IE7 in order to increase overall performance and support for various web standards, as well as resolve a few potential security issues. Thus, while it has the same basic foundation as IE6 there is certainly a different twist to it. In my usage of it IE7 has appeared slightly faster than IE6, but was still outperformed by Firefox and Opera. The big concern right now is the list of bug reports which has yet to be addressed...you can try it and see how it works for you, but be prepared to revert back to IE6.

John

I downloaded IE 7 two weeks ago. I have had no problems with it and havent received and viruses or spyware or any other unwanted critters. Mabey I am lucky and blessed. You all are scaring me about the bad talk of IE 7

Some of the problems include:
* Scroll bar jerking up and down instead of scrolling smoothly. Most commen with those that have Logitech mouse software installed.
* Inability to reset their homepage. Most likely a conflict with security software that locks IE settings.
* The 'setup' page that asks you to customize IE7 displays every time IE is launched instead of just the first time. This is a result of it failing to write to the registry properly.
* A corrupt installation makes it difficult to uninstall IE7 and revert back to IE6 if necessary.
* Software incompatibility, with McAfee and Cisco recently topping the list of various glitches or lack of support.

These problems do not affect everyone, but enough people have reported problems that we now urge caution when upgrading and note that they might face problems. Other companies are working out problems between their software and IE7 but so far Microsoft has not addressed the problems (to my knowledge). If you have not experienced any of the problems, great! Just be aware that they exist so that if you or friends start having problems you know where to start looking.

John

Hi. Since my post, I have downloaded IE 7. Thought I'd just do it. I actually find it quite cool. Like the new features eg. shrink to page printing, zoom button at bottom right that still maintain picture resolution, quick search engine and tabbed browsing. And I found it to be a bit faster than IE 6. You highlighted some problems people encountered. As a matter of fact, I also experienced the jerky scroll bar thing and I'm using an Acer mouse. Other than that, everything's ok. Overall, I think it's worthwhile and would recommend those who are still using IE 6 to upgrade.

just down loaded the new IE7 and I think its a piece of junk it won't let u in to about any thing with out redoing your whole computer first. so I can't see where it is any beter then Number 6 a lot more trouble. Maybe when they get all the bugs out of it and it comes with a IE7 for dummies it will work. thank you for letting me ramble
Phil

ha ha yes I am a bit scared to .All the things said about it as i have been running it for about a month and no dramas up till now ,except some of the web pages i access have not updated their page to accept IE7 so i can't go there.....till they catch up.

I cannot understand why people are so quick to blame Microsoft so fast. I repair PC's for a living, and have installed IE 7 on about 90 different computers with out any problems what so ever. I think that some of the problems people have is that they don't know what they are doing.

Consider the patch Microsoft just released for IE7 that fixes a problem with the built-in phishing filter. I wonder how many thousands of people had their computers freezing and/or crashing on them and either were blamed or blamed themselves for 'doing something wrong' before IE7 was determined to be faulty. There are still many more problems that have yet to be addressed, including software incompatibilities, some of which have been issues since beta 1. Perhaps I would start by pointing the finger elsewhere if Microsoft's buggy software wasn't the culprit in most cases.

John

Thanx for pointing that out. If I had read your timely post, I wouldn't have responded with mine.

I just bought a new computer and had to do a Windows update which automatically installed internet explorer 7, it is driving me nuts if I try to open more than two explorer pages it crashes on me, went to the update page for explorer 7 to fix problem, alas no updates.. Very much considering going back to ie 6 as surfing the internet has become a nightmare

A rollback to IE6 might just be in your best interest.

Your situation is interesting because although I'm no expert here, t I'd thought that system maintenance MIGHT be a factor in why so many of us is having problems with this conversion. Perhaps file structure, or storage capacity could somehow be an issue, but your system is brand new and most likely you don't have any structure/capacity issues.

I'm curious as to why you didn't hold out for VISTA that's supposed to be released next month, or so?

Ignorance probably factors in most of the problems that we as humans have, so why should computers be any different for us? Computers are a strength for you. Good for you, but the rest of us still have to get by with the skills that we have (Or don't have).

I didn't get it that most of us were slamming IE7. The vast majority of the posts that I read indicated that many of us didn't like the results that we saw converting from IE6 to IE7, and just decided to rollback to IE6, or other. What's wrong with that? Sure, there were some that slammed IE7, but that is to be expected.

That so many of us "Dont' know what they are doing" does not change the fact that converting from IE6 to IE7 (FOR US) can be more trouble than it's worth and the best choice just might be to stay with IE6, or other.

"Two or three sites don't work with Firefox, so IE7 comes in handy for them."
I downloaded & installed the "IE Tab" extension for Firefox, so the sites that don't like it are rendered in IE. You might want to try that; it eliminates the need to have any version of IE on my machine!

IE Tab is a great extension, but it works by loading various components of Internet Explorer, including the rendering engine, inside the Firefox interface. Thus, if you remove Internet Explorer from your computer IE Tab will cease to function, preventing you from accessing IE-only websites.

John

I've just tested this...

Cool!

Firefox rocks!

Thanks for tip.

(If I understand correctly, you still need to have IE installed... It just loads IE within Firefox.)

Thanx, but where were you when I could have really used this piece of info? JK!

I downloaded, tried it for awhile and just didn't like it. I have 3rd party security and so far no problems there. Not a selling point for me either. I uninstalled and back to IE6.

My step-son downloaded IE7 and had nothing but problems from the very beginning: screen stalling, to blank screens, etc. He is now back to IE6 also.

There will have to be a lot of updates to IE7 before I try it again.

Beckster

Greetings,

I seen your reply on C/Net and was wondering how to go about changing from IE7 to IE6. I too, as you, don't like it hardly at all. I'm just not quite sure how to get rid of 7 and return to 6.

I run XP Pro on my home computer (Dell XPS)

Thanks so much!

David.

You can return to IE6 simply by uninstalling IE7 with the Add/Remove programs function in your control panel. Uninstalling IE7 automatically rolls back to IE6.

I was happy to see your message. I had all kind of problems with IE7 and wanted to uninstall it without losing my saved favorites etc.Thanks for posting the simple resolution of uninstalling. IE7 caused me to get a missing dll file on this computor. and also I had problems with the other computor I have linked to this main one. I would not recommend it .

I keep a tester computer for just such problems. It appears to me at least, that IE 7 is part of Vista and a push to get people to upgrade to Vista. The average users computer will not support Vista. Which then means users will have to upgrade machines, Software upgrades, and a continuous cycle. Most of the ISP's I deal with are not ready for it yet either.