You heard it here folks, MSN is currently developing a next generation version of their popular MSN Toolbar Suite that we exclusively revealed last November.
The updated version will include an implementation of tabbed browsing allowing users of IE6 without Windows XP SP2 (& IE7) to benefit from tabbed browsing in Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 7 is set to debut in beta form this summer with various improvements including tabbed browsing, inbuilt MSN search and an RSS aggregator, however, IE7 will only be made available for customers using Windows XP with SP2.
It's not year clear when the new toolbar will be available and at time of writing an MSN Spokesperson said the following:
Since the launch of the beta in December, we are thrilled with the strong consumer interest we have seen. We continue to receive constructive feedback both from consumers and internet enthusiasts, which will help us deliver an industry-leading final product. Feedback topics range from accuracy of search results to suggestions on possible new features. We will continue to incorporate the consumer feedback we receive and we hope to ship the final product in the next few months. We are getting great feedback from beta customers, and continue to improve the product, and are committed to shipping a great solution for consumers when it is ready.
We'll keep you up to date :)
Update: screenshot removed at the request of Microsoft.
View: Current MSN Toolbar Suite
The updated version will include an implementation of tabbed browsing allowing users of IE6 without Windows XP SP2 (& IE7) to benefit from tabbed browsing in Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 7 is set to debut in beta form this summer with various improvements including tabbed browsing, inbuilt MSN search and an RSS aggregator, however, IE7 will only be made available for customers using Windows XP with SP2.
It's not year clear when the new toolbar will be available and at time of writing an MSN Spokesperson said the following:
Since the launch of the beta in December, we are thrilled with the strong consumer interest we have seen. We continue to receive constructive feedback both from consumers and internet enthusiasts, which will help us deliver an industry-leading final product. Feedback topics range from accuracy of search results to suggestions on possible new features. We will continue to incorporate the consumer feedback we receive and we hope to ship the final product in the next few months. We are getting great feedback from beta customers, and continue to improve the product, and are committed to shipping a great solution for consumers when it is ready.
We'll keep you up to date :)
Update: screenshot removed at the request of Microsoft.
View: Current MSN Toolbar Suite
Test configuration and benchmarks
The systems used for testing on which we have successively installed Windows XP SP 2 and Windows XP x64 Professional Edition was provided by Senorg Romania www.senorg.ro.
The configuration of the test system:
- ABIT AN8 Socket 939 with nForce 4 chipset motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64 bit 3000+ boxed processor, cooler included
- 512 MB RAM Kingston Dual Channel 400 MHz
- SATA Western Digital 120 GB hard disk
- ATI Radeon X700 PCI Express cu 256 MB RAM GDDR3 ABIT video card
- DVD-RW Lite-ON optical device
- 350 W power source
- Eizo 1280x1024@85 Hz monitor
For the motherboard, the following drivers were used: nForce 6.53 for Windows x32 and nForce 6.39 for Windows x64, being the last available versions from Nvidia when this test was done.
The driver for the ATI Radeon X700 video card was Catalyst Center 4.5, available on the ATI site both for Windows XP Professional Edition and Windows XP x64 Professional Edition.
The operating systems were Windows XP Professional Edition SP2 and Windows XP x64 Professional Edition SP1 build 1433.
The following benchmarks were used:
SiSoftware Sandra 2005 Professional Edition, both 32-bit and 64-bit
3D Mark 2005 1.20
ScienceMark 2005, both 32-bit and 64-bit bit
Chronicles of Riddick : Escape from Butcher’s Bay, both 32-bit and 64-bit bit
now for longhorn news :p .. cmon...
You've clearly never used a tabbed browser for any length of time, once you get the hang of it, it speeds up your browsing a hell of a lot and makes everyday usage so much easier.
For example, if I'm looking for something on google, I can have google open and just middle click a bunch of links that look helpful, this opens them in new tabs. Then I can go through the tabs and close the ones I don't need or am finished with. Not once do I get confused due to multiple windows and my taskbar doesn't get cluttered up either.
Also, the google search page is still there should I find that all of the links I clicked weren't helpful.
Tabs are especially handy if you're using severate sites at once for say a Photoshop tutorial or whatever.
Don't confuse being able to middle-click on links with the concept of tabbed browsing. Middle-clicking on links is just a way of opening webpages inside another viewport without disrupting the previous viewport. You could implement this behavior with a number of different techniques including multiple-tabs, multiple-frames, multiple-windows, multiple-monitors, etc. Just have middle-clicking a link open the respective webpage in a different viewport.
When your tab bar gets full, it will eventually get cluttered, just like the taskbar. Have you ever tried opening 20 to 30 tabs and forgetting which tab contained which website?
Sorry, but I am not a heavy heavy internet surfer. However, having said that, I currently have 12 tabs in firefox and I don't have any navigational problems. If I need to see what website the tab contained, I just click in it and see what it is, it's a lot easier than trying to find it in my task bar (with all the other apps) and it helps me switch between apps a lot easier too.
Last edited by 48274 on 21 Apr 2005 - 02:42
Also, no, I haven't opened 20-30 tabs at once, but then again, imagine 20-30 browser windows open at once on top of your regular windows. I don't know about everyone else, but when I'm browsing, I tend to have a lot of other windows open at the same time, like MS Word, IRC, MSN, Winamp, Activesync etc., having all my browsing in one window is just a lot handier for me and it saves taskbar space (I keep my taskbar at 2 levels as it is).
Also, there's nothing to stop you having multiple tabbed browser windows open as well, so you can say have a window with several tabs dedicated just just neowin (say a tab for each news section?) and in another window you could have another site, don't think that if you use tabs you have to use one single browser window at a time, that seems to be a common misconception with Tabs :/
be grateful that in some way microsoft are still supporting and adding features for older platforms, which is more than can be said for certain companies, which just love dropping off support as soon as they possibly can.
Last edited by 25729 on 21 Apr 2005 - 08:44
But if you are skim reading through a bunch of web pages and want content delivered to you seemingly instantaneously, well then tab-browsing is for you.
and jsut because people dont do things teh way you do them doesnt make there way wrong or your way right. theres a ton of different ways to do teh same exact thing in windows as it is and none are better then the other. its called User preference. if it works for you good. but people are complex. so what works simply for one complex person doesnt work teh same way for another complex person
The reason tabs slow me down has to do with how I have my mouse set up. I have a 5 button mouse and three of the buttons are set to minimize/maximize/close running windows and programs. I can have 50 IE6 windows open, cascade them, and thumb click my way through the different pages. I don't have to aim at anything, just use my extra buttons. I can go through 50 pages in 20 seconds or less. I can't do this using tabs. My mouse would close or minimize the whole app, not just the focused window.
Why...?
That's an awfully cynical view.
The way I see it, they're delivering features that we want today because the other divisions are taking too long. MSN is the fastest moving group at Microsoft.
Last edited by 30311 on 22 Apr 2005 - 00:54
The New MSN search supports lots of things Google does, including "define", "site:", unit conversion and plain text questions like "what is Sweden population" (Answer: Sweden: Population, total: 8,986,400... by MSN Search).
In fact since version 2 I already use MSN Toolbar Suite (with Desktop search), and tabbed browsing will be nice to have - that's before IE7 is out.
"I have a fever and the only prescription is tabbed browsing!"
Firefox 2.0 will kick the silly $#it out of Microsoft. Well 1.0 is doing it already, but this is only the beginning.
The worst is the comment by the MSN spokesperson:
"...which will help us deliver an industry-leading final product." "We are getting great feedback from beta customers, and continue to improve the product, and are committed to shipping a great solution for consumers when it is ready."
I don't know what you mean by industry-leading but in terms of features, this has nothing new whatsoever. MSN Desktop Search is a mere copy of Google Desktop Search. Consumer this, solution that - Microsoft is such a non-personal company, everything is for "customers", and yeah, they're "shipping" it.
Microhell. Mozilla rocks.
Especially a company that has never caused personal harm or damage to them.
What a tool.
You do know nobody gives a crap about you?
I personally use Firefox, but I will try IE7 and I use Internet Explorer alot too.
Oh, and their own employees have to hide their iPods or else they're in trouble.
And hey stopdroproll, my post wasn't about me so I don't know what the hell you're talking about. And I know the things that are in store for 2.0 of Firefox, and I've read about IE 7, so I can already make a comparison, even if they're not available yet.
And my argument basically is that in many ways, Microsoft treats everyone like their little pawns. They want to dominate the world of computers with their monopoly, and people should boycott them (unless they actually do have the best stuff, like their mice).
That's all.
I mean I'd love for someone to find ANY company PR dude that said "We're implimenting this because everyone else did it and it's a good idea". I mean lets face it, it's their Job to make any announcement made by said company to seem like the best thing possible ever that any company could ever do....
This alone removes all doubt that you're an idiot.
Yeah ActiveX is a pile of sh!t but, that fact alone does not make the rest of their software the same.
I'm not a fanboy of any company but maybe, just maybe, if you'd learn how to use your PC and the software on it you wouldn't have so many complaints and/or problems.
If you don't like Microsoft or the software they make then go use Linux. Wait...that would conflict with the above sentence.
IMO, whether it's a feature that's been *copied* or not, it's a welcomed feature. I personally don't like tabbed browsing but bringing IE in to the here-and-now little more is a good thing.
The ipod story has been proven to be fake.
It was written by a Wired.com author who is a known anit-microsoft shill.
If you don't like them, don't use them?
As for myself, and the thousands, if not millions of people who have found it a mind cripplingly painfull task to browse more than one site at a time without them, I think you'll find we'll stick to them, and will welcome their acceptance as the norm.
This just gives you another option. And it lets IE users have a great new feature available to them if they want it, without waiting for the next version.
As always, the MSN Toolbar lets you turn off buttons and things that you don't use.
Someone please explain to me how "Tabbed Browsing" is cheap? thats like the second comment I have seen on this.
#2.1 Reply by RichardK on 20 Apr 2005 - 19:33 Quote this comment
Tabbed browsing is a step backward, not forward. It's so cheap looking.
Oh my bad.. that was you trolling on the first post...
Adding tabs isn't going to make me use IE now. I like Firefox. But the real blunder is adding the MSN Toolbar as well. Perhaps that can be turned off, I don't know, but I don't like extra toolbars. In fact I usually make my toolbars smaller than the default.
I can't believe MS though. They have longed said they wouldn't release a version of IE with an OS and now they are doing it.
I presume you mean "They have long said they would not release a new version of IE without a new version of Windows"?
If that's what you mean, I guess they didn't plan on having a huge 5 year gap between Windows releases. They need to release a new IE since new-comers like Firefox have appeared. This news post is regarding a new MSN Toolabr anyway, why are we talking about IE7?
Finally they get it.... and still mess it up
Explain to me how they have messed it up - IE7 and this new MSN Toolbar haven't been released, yet they have already messed it up?
Didn't I hear once that if MS had done it sooner, they could've been taken to court for it? Basically if they implement any feature that isn't virtually standard in all of its competitors software, somebody will run to a judge crying anti-competitive practices or something.
Although Microsoft did state that IE was intergraded with Windows so it couldn't be removed during the AntiTrust case. Even so that doesn't mean they can't update Windows along with IE.
However, by adding tabs, they're simply adding a feature. Even though I'm a huge critic of Microsoft, I don't see anything wrong with this.
tabs = "technology"