I’ve been using beta of Internet Explorer 7 for the last few weeks, and although it’s a big improvement over the existing version of IE, I’m still sticking with Firefox.

I tried hard to stick with IE7, I really did. Best of all is the new tabs, which in some ways work better than Firefox tabs because you can easily get thumbnail views of all of them, somthing Firefox on its own doesn’t do.

There’s also a built-in RSS reader. It’s not fully functional, by any stretch, but it’s quick simple, and easy. The new anti-phishing filter works well; it’s blocked every phishing site I’ve tried to visit.

So why aren’t I switching?

There’s one, overriding reason: Firefox extensions. There are so many of them that add so much to Firefox, that I simpley can’t give them up. They do simple things, such as making it easier to manage tabs, or recreating an entire previous Firefox session, including all the sites I was then visiting on their own tabs.

IE7 doens’t have anything like that, and if history is any guide, it never will. ActiveX controls are too kludgy, difficult to program, and have too many security issues associated with them.

So for the foreseeable future, I remain a Firefox fan.