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IE6 Tabs with MSN Toolbar - Nice idea, flawed implementation

When I heard that MS was adding tabbed browsing features to IE6 via the MSN Toolbar, I thought it sounded like a great idea. Unfortunately, the implementation of the idea isn't so hot. Things I've noticed so far, just in playing around with it for a few minutes.
  • Creating a new tab and switching tabs causes the entire UI to flash and repaint in a very annoying way. This is the biggest problem I have with the feature - it's very distracting.
  • Explorer bar visibility is remembered per-tab. This causes the UI to rearrange itself as you flip tabs.
  • There doesn't seem to be a way to open a Favorites item in a tab.
I'm happy that MS is embracing tabbed browsing (it is one of the big reasons that I switched to Firefox). But it looks like we'll have to wait until IE7 for an effective implementation.

5 Comments

  • why people like firefox with the reason of tab??? opera did it long time ago. And if u still like IE, u should use IE based browsers like Greenbrowser. Greenbrowser is awsome with tabbed browsing n many more features.



    If u like FF, u should like it with other reasons.

  • I think the fact that Opera is not free has something to do with it. As for Firefox, I certainly have other reasons to use it, such as security, popup-block (yes I know IE has that now), and standards compliance. It's also fast, not bloated, not tied to the OS. I don't know whether IE7 will make me change back. After all, IE4 made me switch from Netscape.

  • also, there's a lot of plugins that for firefox that is very useful. There's also feature that you can add extensions/plugins like firebug that lets you debug/step-into javascript code in the running web application. You can see the code of the html control by just mouse-over on it which is very useful for the web developers. also, i found a very slick plugin which is mouse gesture which lets you do back/forward into the page without clicking the back/forward buttons just by using mouse.

  • I can't do this!!!

  • >> But it looks like we'll have to wait until IE7 for an effective implementation.

    *ejem* it looks like we'll have to wait until _IE8_ for an effective implementation.

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