Web 2.0.11562 beta

The widely anticipated IE7 browser was released today. First sighting I could find was at Yahoo!, where the Yahoo! branded and bundled browser package could be had for those early adopters. When the official, unbundled Microsoft version appeared the link still said that it was RC1. When downloaded it disappointed those waiting for support of some languages… I mean that it appears the early release supports only Japanese and Arabic. Roughly 50 other languages should be supported by the time the browser is”pushed” to folks around the world as a security update.

There seems to be plenty of religious wars going on due to the imminent release of Microsoft’s IE7 browser. The unwashed masses use this browser well in excess of 90-95% depending on the country. So the argument goes, folks in countries where English is not near-ubiquitous will gradually realize that they can type directly into the browser in their own language. I just don’t understand why people don’t think this is the inevitable result?

Sure, Mac users will say, they take for grated that they can use whatever language they want when navigating the web. And sure lots of programmers use Firefox (yours truly) which has long supported IDNs. And so on and so forth, say the devotees of Opera and Safari and Konqueror, etc. But the vast majority of web users have never realized they could, and soon they will make this discovery. Like I said I just can’t understand the naysayers…. if most of the web were in Chinese and suddenly I realized I could type English into my browser — guess what, I would!