The Find as you type add-on is available for Internet Explorer 7 only. It supports both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems and can be downloaded in four different languages which are German, English, Italian and Dutch. Make sure Internet Explorer is closed during installation.

Once installed you can access the new function by pressing CTRL + f as usual. Instead of opening a search box a small search bar will open instead waiting for input. The add-on will start finding matching strings once the first character has been entered in the search bar.

I was not able to find some sort of configuration for the add-on though. As you all know it is possible to use the find as you type feature in Firefox without having to press CTRL + f before. Would be nice if this could be added to this add-on for Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 as well.

Each category has some subcategories that finally contain the links to the add-ons. Many of the add-ons listed are not free, you should enable the freeware only option if you would like to view only freeware add-ons. As an example, the privacy subcategory of security has 39 entries, if you choose only freeware add-ons the list is reduced to 14.

Microsoft introduced a rating system and comments system for their add-ons website, make sure you read the comments before you install an add-on.

There are of course not that many add-ons available at the moment, the list surely grows with time. I dislike the fact that freeware and commercial products are in that list, would love a similar system to the mozilla system with only freeware add-ons listed.

It is still a nice idea to take a look at the add-ons and install and test some of them.. I stick with firefox nevertheless.