If you're a Web designer who doesn't mind designing features that won't be accessible to users without IE 5.5, the new version offers many impressive options.
There's no need to stop whatever you're doing and rush to download Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 from the company's Web site. The enhancements in the latest version of Microsoft's free Web browser seem designed more to benefit the company's corporate ambitions than to bring significant benefits to users. The new version may be worth the download for its improved performance when displaying sites that use frames and for its new print preview feature. Most of the other new features, however, add support for proprietary extensions to Dynamic HTML (DHTML) such as coloured scroll bars and distractingly animated colour gradients.
The biggest change to the menus and interface is the Print Preview feature, with its ability to show how many pages are needed to print a site. Unfortunately, IE 5.5 doesn't integrate Print Preview with IE's long-standing ability to print one frame on a page, which means that Print Preview can be used to display output only when you print all the frames on the page.
The only significant performance improvement occurs when you view sites that use multiple frames. The new version displays all frames in a single page, with a slight (but noticeable) increase in speed. There's now support for 128-bit encryption in the browser itself; it doesn't require a separate download from the Windows Update site, as in Version 5.
A major enhancement for users who visit Chinese and Japanese sites is the ability to display text vertically, as in traditional Asian printing. Microsoft's implementation of vertical text conforms to one of the World Wide Web Consortium's open standards.
If you're a Web designer who doesn't mind designing features that won't be accessible to users without IE 5.5, the new version offers many impressive options. But these features seem intended more to persuade designers to work in Microsoft's Internet framework than to use open standards. Strangely, the new IE 5.5 design features don't use Extensible Markup Language (XML), the basis of the recently announced Microsoft.NET initiative, so designers who focus on the new features in IE 5.5 may be locking themselves into a technology that Microsoft itself is de-emphasising.
The features are unquestionably impressive to look at. Frames can now be transparent, so content from the underlying page can show through or be hidden when a user moves the mouse over a page. Frames can also be shuffled like a deck of cards, and different frames can be overlaid over an existing one in response to a user's actions. Simple DHTML code lets users zoom an image between multiple magnification levels without waiting for the image toreload. A control can be embedded that lets a visitor edit part or all of a page in WYSIWIG mode.
The only change we discovered in Outlook Express 5.5, which can be downloaded as part of the IE 5.5 upgrade, affects users who prefer Outlook Express as their mail client and Netscape as their default browser. With earlier versions of Outlook Express, if you clicked on a link in a message and Netscape was your default browser, the link would open in Netscape. In Version 5.5, the link opens in Internet Explorer, and Microsoft has again worked to prevent its products from mixing with those of competitive vendors.
If you frequently search for text on a Web page, Netscape uses the Windows-standard F3 keystroke to let you search for the same text more than once, without reopening the Find dialog. In IE, you have to press Ctrl-F to open and reopen the Find dialog each time you want to find the same text. Netscape also makes it easier to zero in to a specific page when searching the list of previously visited pages. And Netscape enhances security by easing the task of removing all traces of your browsing activity from your hard drive.
For the casual users, IE remains the first choice among browsers, and IE 5.5 has enough enhancements to justify an upgrade, but an expert user would benefit by keeping both browsers on his or her system.
Internet Explorer 5.5
Company: Microsoft
Ph: 13 20 58
Price: Free Download
Rating:
Download Now
1%
8%
