Internet Explorer has had quite a major overhaul (finally). Many of us may have been using it for a few months now, bugs and all. Yesterday, Yahoo actually scooped Microsoft with their own product by releasing the Yahoo! optimized IE7. With the new tabbed browsing option (which has been available in Firefox and Opera for a while now) they’ve set it up so that your browser opens up with Yahoo! home page and Yahoo! News. Naturally the Yahoo! Toolbar is included and Yahoo! Search is the default engine.

IE7 itself is a more feature-rich experience with the likes of improved Web standards support, RSS and tabbed browsing. There is also additional protection or what they refer to as a “phishing filter” aimed at warning users of malicious websites. Interestingly, in a previous post I noted that the browser thinks the Microsoft.com site is a potential phishing site. For the most part though, this update is more of a catch-up as people have been adopting Firefox in droves. Firefox itself is due for an update in the next couple of months.

Microsoft will be rolling out IE7 updates automatically towards the end of the month but if you can’t wait, you can go ahead and download it from their site.