Microsoft has released its third and likely final beta for its next generation Internet Explorer 7 Web browser.
Earlier this month Microsoft confirmed to internetnews.com that a third IE beta was in fact on its way. The third beta includes numerous security, compatibility and stability fixes over the last beta release, which came out of preview in late April.
Microsoft had been claiming for several months that IE 7 was in fact layout-complete, but apparently that wasn’t entirely accurate.
IE 7 beta 3 does in fact include some additional look-and-feel layout changes, which include the ability to reorder tabs as well as adding an e-mail button to the toolbar.
A number of layout rendering bugs have also been fixed in the beta 3 release which Microsoft claims improves IE 7’s reliability.
The built-in RSS reader also gets an upgrade. Users will now be able to mark feeds as having been read, and feeds can now be updated automatically.
Microsoft includes the latest IE Security fixes in the latest beta, as well.
“Today’s release is the final beta for IE7,” Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft general manager, said in the IE blog. “Our next steps are the Release Candidates followed by general availability in the second half of the year.”