[emarcotte]

Removing (or rather probably just moving to be in a menu somewhere) things is definitely not the only key to simplicity, but I think it does help in this case.

I think it does look quite a bit simpler to comprehend at least with respect to not slamming too much different stuff in the same sort of grouping.

When I start up IE 8 I get the tab bar which has, in this order: A favorites button with an icon and a label, the set of tabs, some toolbar icons buttons, some of which are menus, some are just actions, some menu labels, and finally another icon menu for help. The new shot looks like they moved most of that into 3 icons on the top right.

Unfortunately they moved the tabs next to the location bar, which means they will now be competing for space, but definitely trimming down and moving where all the menu options are is a plus in my eyes.

They also added the idea of greater emphasis on the back button which is certainly more frequently used, which is nice.

[ThomPete]

The main problem I see is that they have made it simple by removing stuff but leaving no room complexity and still making the look of it complex.

For instance the browser background is semi-transparent which means that yes the page will probably stand out more in some respect but at the same time they have no canvas to work with to make additions, allow for third party stuff. It will have to sit on top of that transparent canvas which will end up making it more complex.

The reason to normally use white, black or gray is to have a neutral background that almost everything fit's nicely into. Now any icon or button have to compete with whatever happens to be behind the semi-transparent canvas.

In many way's from the looks of this they are already maxed out on design debt.

Of course that might be reading too much into it from this screen shot as I don't know what their plans are. But my immediate reaction is it won't scale very well.

[iaskwhy]

In their defence, that's how windows usually work on (err...) Windows 7, apps usually have the top bar and sometimes something more where transparency is allowed (there's a system setting for setting the amount of transparency, or none).

I don't see a problem since the tabs are not transparent, just with a small gradient like Chrome, and it's probably not going to be possible to add things (icons from extensions?) to the main controls of the browser.