IE 7 gets its own 'bugzilla'

Microsoft is for the first time encouraging people to give public feedback on Internet Explorer, with the creation of a bug database for the next version of its browser, IE 7 beta.

The company admitted customers have often asked why it doesn't have a public bug database, something that is standard practice for open source projects such as Mozilla's Firefox.

Al Billings, a member of the IE project team, wrote in a Microsoft blog on Friday: "Many customers have asked us about having a better way to enter IE bugs. It is asked, 'Why don't you have Bugzilla like Firefox or other groups do?'. We haven't always had a good answer except it is something that the IE team has never done before."

He added: "After much discussion in the team, we've decided that people are right and that we should have a public way for people to give us feedback or make product suggestions."

The bug database is accessible from the Microsoft Connect site and can be accessed by anyone who has a Microsoft Passport account. Security bugs and problems with earlier versions of IE should not be logged in the database, said Billings.

Ingrid Marson writes for ZDNet UK