The IE team has recently published a set of new guidelines for add-on developers, which forbid for example to change the default search provider without user consent.

While it is a good thing to keep the user in control, I am afraid the guidelines may be too restrictive, because they basically do not allow to replace or enhance existing IE features any more. However, I think that there are legitimate scenarios for doing so.

I had a friendly conference call with Microsoft informing me about the new guidelines and actions I need to take in order to comply with the guidelines. I have now made two changes to the default settings and hope that the new version will be accepted by Microsoft.

Version 5.0.0.5

• On installation Quero does not hide the IE navigation bar any more
• The toolbar close button is now accessible by default

I would be interested in what you think about the new guidelines and opened a discussion in the forum.

Update 2010-06-19: Version 5.0.0.5 has been approved by the IE team :)