IE7 Public Beta Due Early Next Year

Those eager to get a taste of the next Internet Explorer release with tabs and RSS support only need to wait a couple more months. A public beta of IE7 for Windows XP is slated to arrive in the first quarter of 2006, IE team head Dean Hachamovitch confirmed on Tuesday.

It's not clear if the public pre-release will be branded Beta 2; however, it does coincide with the expected Beta 2 launch of Windows Vista, which will also be open to the public. "We want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to try a pre-release version of IE7 and tell us how it works with their web sites, their applications, their add-ons, and how they use the web overall," said Hachamovitch.