It wasn’t so long ago that conventional wisdom said the Browser Wars were over, and Microsoft had won. With improvmements coming to Internet Explorer,Mozilla’s Firefox, and Opera, is a new horse race in the offing?

While the great browser competition of the past is just a mere percolation at the present, there are signs of life in the competition to win the title of your window on the World Wide Web. In a new article at PCWorld.com, writer Erik Larkin takes a look at what’s coming up and it looks like its more than a mere skirmish. The Browser Wars may again commence and this time the combatants may be IE, Firefox, and Opera.

The view we’re beginning to get is great improvments promised for Internet Explorer and further evolution in Firefox and Opera. PCWorld.com has gotten a look at prerelease versions of IE7, Opera 9 and Firefox 1.5, and here’s what they see coming up:

Internet Explorer Extreme Makeover

The biggest dog in the fight is the one with the most catching up to do. IE7, however, looks like it may at least pull up even in the feature parity department.

• At long last, tabbed browsing, with basic functionality familiar to Firefox and Opera users.
• Bookmarking of RSS feeds (but no quick preview)
• An updated layout including an integrated search box will make IE7 begin to look similar to Firefox and Opera
• Tightened security (including anti-phishing features) and easier deleting of broswer cache, surfing and download history, and cookies.

The promised improvments may or may not convince IE refugees to return, but by giving IE users the same toys the other kids get may well stand to stanch the flow of users moving to other browsers.

Firefox and Opera evolve

Firefox came on strong with the 1.0 release and plans no major changes at this time, but users will likely enjoy the streamlined and improved Auto-update feature, to be streamlined and simplified. This stands to improve Firefox security by getting more people to update more often.

Opera, for its part, promises support for Opera-based widgets, and adds support for Atom 1.0 feeds, as well as continuing support for “site patching”, Opera’s program of distributing site-specific JavaScript patches for sites that still don’t display in Opera’s standards-compliant engine.

The future looks promising for browser users. The upcoming race promises choice for surfers, which is seen as a good thing, and options beyond Internet Explorer, which many people call for. Everyone should win in this race.

(from PCWorld.com via [1] Yahoo! News and [2] Slashdot)