Microsoft has made significant improvements to Internet Explorer (IE) 7 since Beta 1 and more are planned for future builds (
Figure). At PDC 2005, Microsoft announced a new IE 7 feature called ActiveX Opt-In, which should answer the number one concern most security-conscious people (including myself) have with IE today: Many ActiveX controls are unsafe, have been silently installed on users' systems, and are often quite difficult to remove. With ActiveX Opt-in, the only ActiveX controls that will run in Web pages are the ones you OK. High-volume, trusted ActiveX controls such as Flash will of course be allowed automatically.
As with the Windows Sidebar, IE 7 is feature-rich and deserves more coverage. I'll be providing a second IE 7 Preview shortly that will cover the new IE 7 features more comprehensively.