Prepare!

• Using IE7?
  
• Behind a proxy?
  
• Ever seen this error?
  

Then most likely, you (or IE7's anti-phishing feature, or an RSS feed, etc.) have tried to load some content from a server registered in DNS, but has not returned a result within 30 seconds. Afterwhich, all IE7 tabs with Internet-content become unresponsive, and IE7 continually reports the error listed in the subject of this post.

So, what's the answer? Simple: Inform IE7 never to mark your proxy as 'bad', using the BadProxyExpiresTime registry hack. Here's how:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320507

If this registry hack scares you, then here's a work-around: Toggle IE's "Work Offline" feature. To do so, pull-down IE's File menu, and select "Work Offline" -- then repeat, to enable online mode. This little trick should reset the internals of wininet.dll to allow browsing once again.

So I took the plunge on one of my Windows PCs and decided to install the now "High priority update" recommended by Microsoft: namely, Internet Explorer 7.0 (IE7).

To borrow an expression from my kids:

What a piece of junk!

While I applaud Microsoft's attempt to offer a browser that approaches modern-day standards, I was totally turned-off by the lack of configuration options, and its slow page loading and rendering speed.

Seriously, who in their right mind at Microsoft thought it was a good idea to not allow the menu bar above the main navigation toolbar? I mean, every single Microsoft product (besides IE7) that I know of, adhere's to this general Windows UI design guideline. And the right-click context menu for the main toolbar, what's up with showing the default system menu there? Come on Microsoft, it's called a context menu for a reason -- so make it contextually viable at least.

And why does it take forever to load IE7 and render a simple page? I haven't found a good example yet where IE7 beats either Opera or Firefox in this regard.

On a 'positive' note (if you want to call it that), I can still use IE7 to retrieve Windows Updates -- since it's still ActiveX capable. At least the security enhancements in IE7 are a bit improved over IE6, which is probably why IE7 is listed as a "High priority update" now.

Anyhow, as you may know, I'm sticking with Opera.

Although, my advice to Microsoft is: keep up the effort. Perhaps someday IE7, 8, or 9 may actually compete in the browser realm, but it isn't ready today.