Internet Explorer 7

Despite Internet Explorer’s security holes and general lack of features, Microsoft didn’t deem its users worthy enough of having an upgraded Web browser... That was until the arrival of Firefox and Opera and other like them. A year ago, Microsoft announced that they were indeed going to upgrade to IE7 for XP and Win2K users. Now, that promise is in fruition and we get a first peek at what Microsoft’s new browser can do.

Requiring XP’s SP2, you’ll be able to get your hands on this work in progress, but thankfully for diehard Microsoft fans, you now have your very own up-to-date browser which focuses on three things: security, user interface, and an improved platform. For Security, the two changes that stand out are a built-in phishing filter and new ActiveX defaults. The phishing filter works by scanning a Web page when you browse to it and comparing it against information from Microsoft of fraudulent servers.

For the Platform changes, the one that stands out would have to be the Windows RSS Platform. According to Microsoft , it provides “rich functionality for downloading, storing and accessing RSS feeds across the entire operating system and will enable more users to take advantage of RSS-related innovation. Support for the Windows RSS Platform means that once a user subscribes to a feed in one application, that subscription and all the associated content will be made available across the operating system to any application available to make use of it.”

For the user interface, hold onto your hats folks 'cause this is huge, Microsoft has actually included, get this Tabbed Browsing Gasp! You also get a Favorite’s Center which takes the place of your old favorites.
So a quick recap:

-Built-in phishing filter and new ActiveX
-Favorites Center
-RSS Feeds
-Quick Tabs (a preview of all the available tabs. It displays thumbnail views of all the tabs in a single window.)