There are times when I really get frustrated with marketing, hype, etc. And the latest IE Team Blog Post is one of those.
There is a new feature in IE7 called ‘Delete Browsing History’ that gives users an easy way to control the data stored by the browser.
Could be interesting.... I wonder if they'll provide the ability to delete single sites from your history, rather than clearing your entire history...
Now back in IE6, you would have to spend a lot of time looking through various places on your computer to get rid of all the relevant information and possibly still miss some critical information. Now with the ‘Delete Browsing History’ feature, we are giving every person the ability to clear all their browsing information from one location with a click of a button and, the peace of mind that the job was done right.
Umm..... no. I'm an avid user of IE6 - it's open on my desktop for probably 6 out of 8 hours in my average work day. When I want to clear my history and all browsing information, I just go into the "Internet Options" screen. Right there on the front "General" tab is the "Temporary Internet Files" and "History" section that allows me to clear it all. To kill the "Form Data" and "Passwords", click on the "Content" tab in the Internet Options screen, and down in the "Personal Information" section, click on the "AutoComplete" button.
Ok.... so you've added one new button on the screen that allows me to clear all of the history in a single click? Yes, that one button is technically a "new feature".
What does this feature really do?
It deletes the following items which are split into five categories, listed below:
- Temporary Internet Files: Downloaded files cached on the client for quick access
- Temporary Internet Files cached for quick access
- Cached files containing Offline favorites
- Information stored by other applications in the Temporary Internet Files folder (e.g. attachment files stored by Outlook)
- Cookies: Information persisted by the client on behalf of the server
- Cookies
- XML Userdata cache
- History: website addresses (URLs) stored to enable History/most recently used website addresses
- Typed website addresses used for Addressbar Autocomplete
- The list of most recently used website addresses in the Run… dialog
- URL History entries (excluding ones marked as Offline Favorites)
- Stored value for Encoding (Code Page)
- Form Data: User-entered personal data stored by the client
- Passwords: User-entered personal data stored by the client
- AutoComplete password data
Maybe i'm missing something here.... where's the new features? IE6 does all of that right now... you just have to click 5 buttons instead of 1.
Where can we find this great feature?
Just go to the Tools menu and you’ll see ‘Delete Browsing History…’. Or whilst you’re in the internet options dialog, you can find this feature under the General tab in the Browsing history section cleverly disguised as the ‘Delete…’ button.
Where can we find this great feature? In your current web browser - IE6.
To the IE Blog Team:
Please stop with the marketing crapp. Give us the facts - we're industry professionals, not end users who want candy and sparkles all over consolidation of 5 buttons.