October’s turning out to be browsers revamp month with Microsoft’s release of Internet Explorer 7 last week, and Mozilla’s Firefox 2.0 coming out tomorrow. Though Opera isn’t getting a new version, it does give a public advisory concerning a flaw with long link handling, ending with a recommendation to update to Opera 9.02. The improvements to these browsers can spell an increase in popularity, but only if the maintain the interest of their current loyal customers and capture that of their competitor’s.

So far the latest Firefox’s near release candidate has allowed several comparisons to be made with IE 7. Both browsers offer tabbed browsing, feeds support, and an easy way to manage bookmarks. The customizations users can do has increased, now that IE also offer add-ons (the equivalent of Firefox’s extensions) though there are differences in the way they manage them.

The antiphishing features and improved security for both browsers will come as a relief to users who’d had to deal with these phishing attempts for the longest time by using different methods. Though Firefox and IE both check a site’s address against a list of known blacklisted phishing sites, IE also sends a warning if a site is suspicious. IE had increased its default internet security rating to high, and warns if any changes in the settings may endanger your computer. The option to delete your browser’s history, currently available in Firefox 1.5, has been added to IE.

This battle between browsers, especially when it comes to their improved security features, highlights how important this issue has become. But in the end, only the user can decide if he will stay with the old, or change to the new.

[tags]browsers, ie 7, firefox 2.0[/tags]