- Wednesday, 25 November 2009
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Together we add up, divided we're just a fraction - Thomas Monk, Accelenation
IE7Pro turns Windows' browser into a Firefox copycat
Product: IE7Pro v2.3
Cost: $0 (Freeware)
OS: WinXP, IE6+
Link:
www.ie7pro.com
MOST WINDOWS users simply don't bother to install another third party web browser and just use what comes with the OS. IE7Pro brings comfort to those suffering from Firefox-envy by bringing some of the power-user features and expandability reserved until not long ago for Firefox.
Why IE still matters, despite the Firefox growth
A couple years ago, before the Firefox craze hit several
milestones,
the Vole's Windows Client director in India Rishi Srivastava made a good joke by
saying that Microsoft's bundling of IE with Windows had nothing to do with its
market share: “IE’s success cannot be attributed to its access through Windows.
The reason why people are not opting for other browsers is because of IE’s
superiority."
Fortunately, by the time IE7 entered the scene copying the main feature of Firefox and Mozilla - that is, tabbed browsing - the NY Times' David Pogue wrote a refreshing piece with a much more down-to-earth analysis: "About 85 per cent of the Internet population uses the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser to surf the wWeb, even though it's relatively ancient, crusty with neglect and about as secure as a screen door."
Mr. Pogue continued by saying, "In what other industry would 85 percent of consumers choose such a product ? when better ones, also free, were also available? Trick question. Those consumers aren't actually choosing Internet Explorer; in fact, they're not choosing. They just use what came on their Windows computers."
Things didn't bode well for MSIE since then, and according to a white paper by Jamco Associates IE has been losing market share ever since Srivastava's made his superiority claim. Yet, there's plenty of people in work environments for whom Internet Explorer is the only corporate-mandated option.
IE7Pro adds a session manager, Ad Blocker, a download manager, plug-ins
and much more on top of your IE6 or IE7 browser
An article by CW earlier this year highlighted the fact that Firefox adoption at corporations doesn't match its popularity with home users. The causes can be many: inflexible corporate tech support policies, the use of Active-X based in-house applications and never underestimate the fear of the unknown. Whatever the case might be for someone sticking with - or forced to - MS IE, this power user's dream brings some of Firefox' bells and whistles to the Microsoft engine.
A cure for Firefox-envy
IE7Pro is an add-on for Internet Explorer, not a browser replacement. It's the
work of a "virtual" firm, a team of programmers spread around the world and
ironically headed by Faniel Fang, a former team leader at open sauce firm
TurboLinux. The lead programmer, Chris Li also has open source experience as he
claims to have developed, "the first open source intelligent input method for
Windows".
"User-scripts": Greasemonkey style plaintext
scripts, for IE
Basically what it does is replace every IE add-on you can imagine, and brings the same functionality as several Firefox extensions. It also brings something very similar to Greasemonkey user scripts to modify web pages in the browser, basically allowing one to "extend" web sites with functionality beyond what webmasters intended.
The program is free but developers request donations or ask you
to set their web site as your browser's default home page.
This software has updates released quite frequently. The program hit version 1.0 less than a year ago and by now it's already at version 2.3, which was released on May 20th. It is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit builds, and you can download it from this link. Installation is flawless and a no-brainer. You will immediately recognise its round blue icon at the browser's status bar, next to the zoom level indicator. Clicking on it brings a pop-up menu with all the options you might need.
In the world of IE7PRO, what would be called "extensions" in Firefox parlance are called "plug-ins" instead. Getting weather data for your location from AccuWeather, getting the Google pagerank displayed on each web page visited, looking up the web server information, all these and more can be accomplished via IE7Pro "plug-ins".
With regards to "user scripts" these are user-readable scripts, just like Greasemonkey's. You get about 15 scripts already delivered with IE7Pro, with about 240 user-submitted scripts listed at the IESCRIPTS.org web site over here, plenty of which are "ported" by the IE7Pro team from existing Greasemonkey scripts from UserScripts.org.
User scripts at work. Here, "automagically" adding a
download link to YouTube videos
Other very useful functionality is already included in the IE7Pro code without needing any plug-ins or user scripts, for instance, a download manager which almost copies the Firefox one in look and feel. Another popular Mozilla feature, bookmark aliases, is present in IE7Pro. So if you bookmark www.theinquirer.net and define it with an alias of "INQ" you'll only have to type "inq" into the url bar to end up here.
You can switch the User-agent at will and add a list of proxies to use
An ad-blocker, a Flash blocker, a spelling checker and a very useful "save current tab as an image" feature add icing to the cake. We tested it on XP SP2 and IE build #7.0.5730.11 and couldn't find any major bugs with it. The " user scripts" work as intended and for instance we used one to download videos from Youtube effortlessly: it just adds a "download video" link to each Youtube video page.
In short
It will not make Internet Explorer suddenly open source, cross-platform, or
community supported. It won't make the MSIE engine loved by CSS web designers,
or make you part of a rebel movement trying to change the web. It won't also add
a full fledged E-mail application like SeaMonkey, but at least you can enjoy
some of the tricks and expandability of the Mozilla browsers atop the default
Windows browser, with all its defects and virtues.
Being able to use MS Internet Explorer without hating it every minute is one big plus. Since it's a piece of proprietary software and not open source, it loses one beer and gets a score of eight. ?
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hmmmmmm, thats all very well, but whats the point in making internet exploder even slower than it allready is, exploder users will have to 'learn' how to use this giant 'plugin' (2.3 meg) so they might as well 'learn' a proper speedy browser, opera or foxylady :O)
Only drawback is, it slows down the browser.
As the title, just keep using firefox, nothing to see here
Why people keep comparing any browser feature with Firefox, and only with Firefox?

Huge number of these features were available in other browsers before Mozilla/Firefox had them. And tabbed browsing included. For example, Netcaptor had it before Firefox (and even Opera), and MyIE/MyIE2 (today Maxthon) had it before them as well. And guess what - both were shells for IE just like IE7Pro. And guess what else! Both of these shells had same these features, and most of them were in those IE-shells before FF/Mozilla had them.

So quit comparing everything to almighty Firefox. I still find my Maxthon+IE works way better.. I'd keep using Netcaptor, only that they've turned to commercial, while Maxthone is still free and running nicely - thank you.

Expand your views a bit!

P.S. Maybe you could run a review of Maxthon next week for a learning session :)
You said it yourself, the majority of Dimdows users stick with MSIE because that's what's in front of them when they switch on. Why should they go to IE7Pro instead of Firefox? If they're going to switch, it might as well be to the one their tech-savvy friends are already using--which is Firefox.
Thank you LuxZg, Soo tired of these firefox fans everywhere...
why use ie7 that mimics firefox if you can use firefox?
It's not switching, it's adding features.

I have been in IT long enough, and I could have SWITCHED to Opera or Firefox years ago if I wanted to. But through my testing and trying, I've found out that having IE shell is a better way around.

I have all the advantages of IE, and all advantages of alternative browsers at once. All sites that require ActiveX runs fine, all those 90% sites optimised for IE run fine, and I still have all the features and options of any of these alternatives you use.

And by this I kill all the disadvantages of IE, and I'm left with advantages only.

Btw, as for SPEED. Long times ago I've found out that opening 100 BLANK tabs in Firefox, Opera and others can easily kill them or slow them to a crawl, while shells for IE have no such problems. Also, when opening a group of 50 sites, I see no speed advantages in Firefox over Maxthon/Netcaptor + IE. And it ends up more stable and FRIENDLIER.

Btw, if perhaps 50+ tabs sounds too much for you, than you don't even need alternative browsers :D

Anyway, try visiting sites such as Maxthon's hompage and forums, and you'll see millions of people using it, and if they'd all use "Maxthon" as browser UserAgent string, I think statistics would show you amazing percentages of surfers using these shells..
I run webservers and worked with raw data with many more, about 40% of visitors are using firefox (up from about 30% a year or so ago), and this figure doesn't vary much. The lowest I've seen is 17% and that was for a business oriented site.

Thus I call bulls###

Stats you'd find with a quick Google search will bare this out.
Maybe a copy, but underneath it has all the same old Microsoft "added sh*tness" built in, plus a large helping of vulnerabilities included.
Oh, wonder if IE7pro can actually render HTML properly? Probably not..
The term "pro" is a misnomer here of course.
It should be IE7-ES for "extra sh*t".
Underneath it will be bloaty bug ridden and slow, just as XP has become as Microsoft attempts to make it run like vista. As our expectations get lowered for speed, we will be "amazed" when windows 7 launches by its immense speed, overlooking the fact that XP (vista already runs slow) has step by step been slowed down over the last X months.
I'm a bit surprised at all the negative posts.
There are reasons you HAVE to use ie. HAVE to. Perhaps the most significant is ActiveX support, which many new products (yes even in 2009) require. Say what you will, I like my ip cameras and Rovio, and until these manufacturers learn to make netscape plugins... it's IE. Also IE7/8 (aside from being behind in css, lacking a nice javascript console, and download manager...) are more protective against plugins and downloads than the other browsers. IE7/8 on vista/win7 also operate in protected mode (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250462.aspx) making possibly :-) the safest browser for vista (until mozilla_2 https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla_2#Security). IE also integrates better with common windows settings, security policies, certificate stores etc.
BTW: I'm writing this reply in Iron (http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php), though my favorite browser is still firefox. Just saying there's lots of reasons you might want to use IE, or Iron :-), or whatever.
Personally I think IE7Pro is cool, just like adblock, foxforecast, and the web developer toolbar for firefox :-)
Let the flames begin....
99flake, at least it's not nearly as bloated as Firefox! IE7Pro is an add-on for IE, not a shell, so there is nothing "underneath" it - I don't think you know much about add-ons. Click Tools Add-ons in your Firefox to learn more.
And psychochief, I think you should try the add-on before you say it makes Intenret Explorer slower. It actually has options to make IE break the RfC specifications (like Firefox, Opera, etc. already do) and thereby make it faster.