Microsoft Corp., who commands the largest market share in the Internet browsers market, is continuously denounced for vulnerabilities of the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser despite of nonstop release of various patches and updates for the program. However, sometimes the new revisions just cannot solve all the problems and the company has to leapfrog to another level. At the RSA Conference 2005 Microsoft announced a move that was rather unexpected: the company's Internet Explorer 7.0 will be out before the company's forthcoming operating system Longhorn ships.

A beta, or test, version of Internet Explorer 7 will debut this summer. Mike Nash, an executive in Microsoft's security business and technology unit, said in an interview that Microsoft has not determined how or when the final version of Internet Explorer would ship, but that it is planned ahead of Longhorn, according to a report from CNET News.com.

?We?ll be updating Windows on a regular basis. How the browser gets packaged ?whether it's with a service pack ?has not been nailed down. There is going to be a Service Pack 3 (of Windows XP). That's not a surprise. How that relates to Internet Explorer 7's release, we haven't figured out yet,?said Mike Nash, an executive in Microsoft's security business and technology unit.

?The move acknowledges that the browser has become the target of virus and spyware writers. As the security threats have increased, rival browser Firefox has gained fans,?CNET News.com believes.

• CNET News.com: Reversal: Next IE Update Divorced From Windows.