I’ve been meaning to recommend IE7 Pro for a long time and just haven’t gotten around to it. So I was glad when this bit from Charles Arthur’s latest column in the Guardian reminded me:
What happens when you quit your browser, or it crashes, and you had lots of work on the go? That’s when you need session restoring – which brings back the tabs and windows you had open, and reloads them.
It’s so necessary, and obvious, that the most remarkable thing about it is that neither Internet Explorer nor Safari, the two browsers from the companies that dominate desktop OSs, presently have it.
In addition to session management, it has an ad blocker, tab management, a user-agent switcher, spell-checking, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Did I mention it’s free and that the developers update it regularly? I’ve been using IE7 Pro for months on Vista without any significant problems to report.
If you use IE7, this is a must-have add-in.
… Just to clarify, based on at least one comment, IE7 Pro is an add-on for IE7. It uses the standard Internet Explorer add-on hooks and security model. It is not at all comparable to full-blown tabbed browsers like Maxthon and Avant, which use the IE rendering engine but completely replace the interface with their own menus, toolbars, and functionality.
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
IE7 pro? sheesh….Stay away from this horrible BOW-WOW! It thoroughly munged my machine, making browsing slow and useless! Luckily I had a fresh image so I could get back to normal functioning!
Firefox + Tabmix Plus FTW!! It’s been rock-solid for me.
mgo, i’ve used ie7 pro on at least six machines with no problems whatsoever, and i know other people who have had similarly good experiences. sorry you had a bad experience, but it is not typical.
It is odd that neither IE7 nor Safari has a sessions feature, and personally, I think IE7 gets an unfair rap by many, perhaps because we no longer depend on IE.
Sessions are helpful when I’ve left the computer for a while only to find Windows Update ran and rebooted my machine. The next time I open Opera, I’ve given the choice to reopen all the site tabs or save them in a session for later viewing. That’s the way it should be; guess I took the feature for granted.
I prefer Firefox to IE7, but I agree that IE7pro is a welcome addition to IE7. It has not caused issues in IE7, in my experience, and the benefits are good, especially for a free bit of code.
IE7Pro is ok but it has obvious problems and most people do not need it. The Accuweather plugin does not display correctly, I had to manually edit the script file to get it to look right. The inline search is redundant to the the superior IEforge inline search. They cannot even get simple things right like the width of the Max connections per server box in the IE7Pro preferences. It also changes the default behavior of opening links which is incredibly annoying. Overall it is bloated and I would prefer a simple crash recovery add-on.
Andrew,
I disagree with your conclusions. But what else is new?
Some specifics:
“The Accuweather plugin does not display correctly, I had to manually edit the script file to get it to look right. ”
Have you reported the bug to the IE7 Pro developers? They have a very active forum and are super about responding to requests like this. You could start here:
http://forum.ie7pro.com/viewtopic.php?id=509
“The inline search is redundant to the the superior IEforge inline search. ”
So don’t use it. The option is easily disabled. Personally, I like this implementation better than what IEForge has done.
“They cannot even get simple things right like the width of the Max connections per server box in the IE7Pro preferences.
Looks fine here. You mean the gap between the description and the input box? Sheesh.
“It also changes the default behavior of opening links which is incredibly annoying.”
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Links open the same as before here.
Assignment: Compare and contrast IE7Pro, Maxthon 2, and Avant. I will wait.
Rick,
IE7 Pro is an add-on for IE7. It uses the standard IE interfaces to register itself as a Browser Helper Object.
Maxthon and Avant are full-blown executables that use the IE rendering engine but completely replace its interface with their own.
I have used both Maxthon and Avant in the past but not in several years, primarily because they just have too many problems with other add-ons and extensions and they bring a wealth of compatibility problems.
I see, thanks for the clarification.
Of course I already reported it and it had already been reported yet they release new versions and don’t fix something that took me 1 minute by editing a script file.
Of course I don’t have to use it but that is the point it comes with redundant bloat.
Yes the spacing. the Zero on the 10 is cut off. I mean come on how do they miss these things?
The default behavior is that when you type something in the address bar it always opens a new tab! That is incredibly annoying.
No need to compare IE7 is better than Avant and Maxthon. The only thing that is missing is the inline search in IE7. Well that and a REAL spellchecker.
I think IE Pro is the only good and useful Add-On for IE 7.
The rest of them are very poor compared to Firefox extensions.
This is one of the reasons we decided to make this article:
http://www.vista4beginners.com/Top-10-Reasons-Why-Internet-Explorer-7-Add-Ons-Suck
You’know if you’re going to use the IE7 engine you’re better off using Maxthon /2 ..its tons better than IE7 Pro.. you’d be crazy not to use Maxthon it does everything IE7Pro does, just better and lot more on top 🙂 Actually Maxthon +addons+skins beats most of what Firefox does aswel so any of you FF users with half a brain cell should check it out too.
Zaine typed these pixels of light:
So make it wait a little/lot longer before it does its configured 10 minute autoreboot: Thanks to PCWorld magazine at http://forums.pcworld.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=42478#42478
In XP Pro and Vista, select Start, Run (just Start in Vista), type gpedit.msc, and press Enter. Navigate in the Group Policy Object Editor’s left pane to Local Computer, Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Update. In the right pane, double-click Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations. In the next dialog box, select Enabled, and set the number of minutes to something very high, such as 600 [Russell….or even better 999]. Click OK and close the Group Policy Object Editor.
IE7Pro is a WICKED add-on coz its like having 4 add-ons in 1. The new version is 100% stable and hasnt caused me any grief (yet).
I thought I’d take the opportunity to tell anyone who’s bothered to read this that I found a brilliant website dedicated to internet explorer AND firefox.
Its got a wicked add-ons page as well as great reviews and features page of IE & Firefox.
site: http://www.internetexplorer-firefox.com
CHECK OUT THIS WEBSITE even if its for 30 seconds