Internet Explorer improvements come to light. Microsoft has confirmed that Internet Explorer 7.0, due for beta this summer, will include improved support for two key Web standards — Cascading Style Sheets and PNG graphics. For years, Web developers have protested that support for both CSS and PNG is buggy or inadequate in IE.

Other rumoured enhancements are tabbed browsing, support for international domain names (IDNs), a built-in news aggregator and a simplified printing tool. MSN has recently begun testing a RSS aggregator. Microsoft is reported to be planning some implementation of CSS2, but is unlikely to use the full World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard.

Microsoft has said IE 7 is to be above all a security release, with any other enhancements on the back-burner.

Rumoured security changes include running the browser in reduced privilege mode, no cross-domain scripting access, a better SSL user interface, and integration with Windows AntiSpyware.