IE7 - another bitter Microsoft pill

So, I recently downloaded IE7. I didn't really need to. I didn't really *want* to, either. However, my Windows Update Manager consistently presented it over and over to me, even though I told it not to remind me again. Nice, huh?

So, now that I have IE7 on my computer, the first thing I had noticed was a new "?" icon on the system tray and a "restore" option with "language" options. So, once again, Microsoft has me install something presumedly innocent (a browser) and I end up installing a bunch of other crap with it, without really being informed. It seems to mess with my PC while I am using Thunderbird to read new email. I think I figured out how to make this little quirk go away - we'll see.

And how does the new IE7 browser fare? It's okay. It looks slick enough, and borrows from Firefox heavily with its new tabbed browsing and side searchbar. The default layout of the address bar, nav buttons, and favorites is a bit clumsy, and the buttons look too big. There's probably some place where I can go in and change that, but for now I don't really care. I don't plan on using it very much, except to see what some of my websites look like in IE compared to Firefox during development and design.

I didn't really want it installed in the first place. Thanks again, Microsoft.