......unfortunately it 'requires' Windows XP service pack 2. no thank you!

A web browser sends requests to a web-server and displays the result according to standards. IE 7 supposedly supports more of these standards better than IE6. Well.... I guess I'm not going to find out. There is no Earthly reason Miscrosoft need SP2 for a web-browser other than their own desire to see everyone upgrade. I'm happy with my own external firewall to protect my machines. My Windows XP machine is (relatively) stable - almost as stable as the Windows 2000 laptop I also still have so I'll not be tempted into upgrading in order to try out IE7.

Not that I wouldn't like to try out this new masterpiece from Microsoft - it's taken them 5 or so years so it should be good - but *why* when I can use Firefox or Opera for free. What is it going to do that those browsers can't? Walking through the Microsoft 'Quick Tour' shows a flashy interface, tabbed browsing, search, RSS feeds and some form of enhanced security.

I need to hunt down information on improved standards conformance - which assuming it's been done well should improve compatibility with standards based browsers.

On the whole it does look a lot like a case of playing catch-up after a good few years of doing very little.