IE 8 Beta : The First Experience

[gxsaurav]

This just in, at Microsoft Mix 08, Microsoft has reveled some of the features of Internet Explorer 8. Seems like IE is again going to win the browser war this time, after years of facing criticism from Firefox, Opera & Safari Users.

IE 8 as it is going to be called will be available for Windows XP, Vista & Server 2008 users soon this year. It is going to be 100% standard complient as said by Microsoft & will feature better integration with Web 2.0 services. Since it is made for Windows, you can be sure that it will run faster & feature a nice integration with the Windows Enviroment.

Here are some of the new features of Internet Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/NewFeatures.htm).

Activities

Activities are contextual services to quickly access a service from any webpage. Users typically copy and paste from one webpage to another. Internet Explorer 8 Activities make this common pattern easier to do.
Activities typically involve two types of scenarios: "look up" information within a webpage or "send" web content to a web application. For example, a user is interested in a restaurant and wants to see the location of it. This is the form of a "look up" Activity where the user selects the address and views an in-place view of the map using his favorite map service.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/images/ScreenActivities.png

An example of a "send" Activity is a user reads an interesting article and wants to blog about a portion of the article. The user can select a portion of the article and uses the blog Activity. This navigates to the user’s blog site with the selection already available in the edit field.

Activities are services that the user can install and manage. Users can install them from the Internet Explorer 8 Service Guide (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=99193) or through any website that advertises Activities.

WebSlices

WebSlices is a new feature for websites to connect to their users by subscribing to content directly within a webpage. WebSlices behave just like feeds where clients can subscribe to get updates and notify the user of changes.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/images/ScreenWebSlicePreview2.png

Internet Explorer 8 Users can discover WebSlices within a webpage and add them to the Favorites bar, a dedicated row below the Address bar for easy access to links. Internet Explorer 8 subscribes to the webpage, detects changes in the WebSlice, and notifies the user of updates. Users can preview these updates directly from the Favorites bar and click-through to the website to get more information.

Favorites Bar

In Internet Explorer 7, the Links bar provided users with one-click access to their favorite sites. The Links bar has undergone a complete makeover for Internet Explorer 8. It has been renamed the Favorites bar to enable users to associate this bar as a place to put and easily access all their favorite web content such as links, feeds, WebSlices and even Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/images/ScreenFavoritesBar.png

A user can easily add a link to the Favorites bar by using the Add to Favorites button and selecting the Add to Favorites Bar option.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/images/ScreenFavoritesBar2.png
Automatic Crash Recovery

Automatic Crash Recovery (ACR) is a feature of Windows®Internet Explorer® 8 that can help to prevent the loss of work and productivity in the unlikely event of the browser crashing or hanging. The ACR feature takes advantage of the Loosely-Coupled Internet Explorer feature to provide new crash recovery capabilities, such as tab recovery, which will minimize interruptions to users’ browsing sessions.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/images/ScreenCrashRecovery.png


Improved Phishing Filter

Internet Explorer 7 introduced the Phishing Filter, a feature which helps warn users when they visit a Phishing site. Phishing sites spoof a trusted legitimate site, with the goal of stealing the user’s personal or financial information. For Internet Explorer 8, we are building on the success of the Phishing Filter with a more comprehensive feature called the "Safety Filter."

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/images/ScreenSafetyFilter.png

The Safety Filter continues to block known Phishing sites and now blocks sites known to contain malicious software that could harm users’ computer or steal their information. Beyond this improved protection, the Safety Filter operates more quickly than ever before to ensure that users can browse both safely and quickly.

For IT administrators, new Group Policy options are available to remove the user-override option and fully block access to known unsafe sites.

IE 8 Beta 1 is available for download now (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm). Internet Explorer 8 can be installed on Microsoft Windows Vista® Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Vista, Windows XP® Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Server® 2008 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2).

[nish_higher]

^ it shows page not found when i click those download links

[rohan_shenoy]

Relieved to know that it will be standards compliant.

^Ye, even I am not able to download the beta pack.

[sabret00the]

wow gx_saurav thanks a lot for sharing this information will try to download it once I get back home from office...:)

[Vishal Gupta]

Its just a test page. You'll not get the working download links atm. They are setting all the things, so bookmark the page for future. ;)

[rohan_shenoy]

Its just a test page. You'll not get the working download links atm. They are setting all the things, so bookmark the page for future. ;)
Do you have any idea when it will be available for download?

[Hitboxx]

Good good, finally MS is doing the catchup work with Firefox although Firefox offers lot more, but still a nice start.

[ravi_9793]

I will waiting for a beta drive. Looks very exciting

[Vishal Gupta]

Do you have any idea when it will be available for download?
It'll be available after Mix08 conference.

[rohan_shenoy]

It'll be available after Mix08 conference.
hmmm......so we will probably get it in next 2-3 days!

[gxsaurav]

Good good, finally MS is doing the catchup work with Firefox although Firefox offers lot more, but still a nice start.

I stopped using firefox long time back cos it is not native to Windows Vista, means no cleartype for HTML in firefox.

Tell me, what makes firefox better then IE 7? You can include extensions in the comparision cos when you do that, I will show u the same extensions for IE 7/IE 8

hmmm......so we will probably get it in next 2-3 days!

Yes.

[Vishal Gupta]

hmmm......so we will probably get it in next 2-3 days!
It'll be available within a few hours. It has been told that it'll start working arround 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Pacific Time.

[casanova]

Looks good. Would download it tomorrow most probably

[Vishal Gupta]

As I earlier said, links are working now. You can download the IE 8 Beta1, Its 11 MB. :)

[gxsaurav]

Already downloaded & using in Windows XP SP2 VM. Can't screw Vista this easily, we just need to test yaar...

[Vishal Gupta]

^^ Its working fine in Vista. :D

[gxsaurav]

I know it is working, but this is a good way to test my Shining new Core 2 Duo E6550's Intel VT technology :D

[ravi_9793]

As I earlier said, links are working now. You can download the IE 8 Beta1, Its 11 MB. :)
Thanks :)
Starting my download .

[gxsaurav]

Using it now in Vista. Many web pages look weird now in IE 8 mode, looks like they will need to be updated. Even digit forum's reply box is giving problems. I am using IE 8 in IE 7 mode as I like the new look & feel but want to keep the old Trident Engine right now as not many websites are made for IE 8 yet.

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/2883/31778712ze8.th.jpg (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=31778712ze8.jpg)

The interface is more polished now, better icons etc. There aren't many changes yet, but since it is Beta 1 this is expected.

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/3969/mainpagegi6.th.jpg (http://img510.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mainpagegi6.jpg)

Menus now have icons, finally.

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/8259/pagemenujq1.jpg

Page rendering in IE 8 mode is very fast though.

The new management center from where you can manage activities & Add ons. IE 7 Pro works fine in IE 8.

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/1184/addonsxo3.th.jpg (http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=addonsxo3.jpg)

[rohan_shenoy]

downloading :D

[kumarmohit]

No changes in the look:(, and how heavy is it?

[nish_higher]

not heavy at all.but crashes with google toolbar.and i cant live without google toolbar so IE 8 uninstalled.its real fast than IE7.

[drgrudge]

Good to see IE 8 so soon. It’s about time that MS starts to keep pace with the competition.

Personally I feel the features 1, 3 & 4 (Activities, WebSlices & Favorites Bar) are bloats. Nevertheless it’s good for developers. IE 6/7 was a headache as was not web complaint. IE 8 should set the records straight.

Go IE 8! MS release IE for Mac too.. (ok, kidding :D)

[axxo]

funny to see that favourite bar, crash recovery were so called as features :D

[debsuvra]

Much buzz is going on Microsoft’s latest incarnation of its famous and most popular browser Internet Explorer. Although the version 8 is not officially released, the Redmond Company has released a beta 1 version of the browser for general public yesterday. Check

On the IE8 Readiness Kit webpage, given links for downloads were not working till today. I downloaded the browser today on Vista and gave it a go for testing. The download was an 11MB one, and it is almost double of its most prominent rival, Firefox. Firefox 3 beta installers are amazingly smaller than any other browsers and IE8 is no match in this category.

Installation

After completing the download, I started the installer to begin. At first glance I though what I was going to install was IE 7 as the both installer has a striking resemblance in the UI. Checked again and being assured as it was indeed IE 8, I proceeded with the installation. On the second step it asked whether it would download the necessary updates automatically for IE8. User can also check the contents of the selected update from the link given on the installer window. Proceeding through this step started the actual installation and updates were started to be downloaded.

There are four steps in the installer to be completed when installing the new version. These are Downloading Necessary Updates, Installing Updates, Installing Internet Explorer Components and Finishing. Shockingly, the installation took a good amount of time as well. Downloading Updates part is completely depend on internet speed, but letting it aside, installing the updates, installing the Core Components and finishing took a lot of time. And finally after a gasping 10 minutes wait, installer stated that the system need a Restart to complete the installation. Proceeded, and when shutting down, the new updates began to configure and upon restart it was working.



Experiencing Internet Explorer 8 Beta


Fired up IE8 at last and I am really happy to see the speed of the application as it opens so fast in comparison to FF 3. The interface is not really changed and almost same as the previous version, only a new toolbar consisting of the ‘Favorites ‘links has been added just beneath the Address Bar.


Page loading speed is improved over the previous versions and it is quite faster than its last version. Though in comparison to Firefox 3 Beta 4, it is somehow slow in rendering but quite impressive on the performance front.
A whole lot of new features are introduced on IE8. I am not going to repeat the feature list here as one can easily check them from the Microsoft site itself @ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/NewFeatures.htm
The newly introduced Webslice feature is somewhat similar to Safari 3’s new feature named Webclip. The later one allows one to select a part of a webpage and watch it live on Dashboard. Although the new feature in IE 8 fetches Webslices from certain websites like msn.com where Microsoft SlideShow is available and a purple colored button become active in the main toolbar. Clicking on it can activate the feature and can show Webslices in the Favorites bar. It can be described as live RSS feeds with interactive contents in it.
Another new feature is the Activities and it is really a nifty one. When watching some contents on a site, one can easily select what to do with them. Adding the contents to various bookmarking sites, blogging them using Windows Live Writer etc.


In the Address Bar, IE8 shows the main name of a site clearly leaving the other parts of the URL like www and sub domains grayed. This helps to recognize the website at one catch.

Performance

Amazingly IE8 fails to deliver some good rendering performances in AcidTest 3. When I tested it using the much coveted benchmarking tool, it simply failed. Even I added it as a Trusted Site so no restrictions were present to render the page contents. But it scores only 19 in the test and that is even very little in comparison with Firefox 2.


I reviewed IE 8 BETA @ IE 8 Beta : The First Experience (http://www.suvraconnected.co.cc/node/13)

[praka123]

firefox3beta5 gets almost 70 in acid3 :p

[ray|raven]

Woah!, Beta 5 ? I thought FF3 was still at beta 3?

[gxsaurav]

firefox3beta5 gets almost 70 in acid3 :p

Ya, u r right.

Hey, I can still browse all my orkut, facebook, myspace, evermotion, MSDN web pages fine in IE. How the hell did this happened when IE cannot pass Acid Test

Oh! I just realised that Acid test doesn't mean anything in real world.

[ray|raven]

Oh, wait , if it doesnt mean anything, why is MS working on getting standards right?

Wake up and see the light dude, developers are getting tired of making a separate version of the webpage just for IE.And if MS doesnt adapt standards , they might just well start losing their share when pages stop rendering right.

[praka123]

^still n00b vista users will stick to IE8 as it is bundled by default :( bad dream!
http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/

[ray|raven]

^Yea, and i dont know abt IE7 but IE6 cant even render png's properly.
And to say that its got the major share!
It(IE6) displays the transparent part of my avatar in black.

[Voldy]

hmm.. no change in interface and even cant show any good benchmarking results in Acid3 test.it doesnt matter how IE performance and compatability has been boasted up in ver.8 its still a beta so will wait for the final release .but good to hear that IE 8 operatability has been boasted up unlike its prev. ver. which takes alot of time to start .

Thanks for the info:D

[gxsaurav]

Oh, wait , if it doesnt mean anything, why is MS working on getting standards right?

Standard support means something, passing ACID test means nothing in real world.

[iMav]

it is faster than 7 on xp :)

check this out new in ie 8:

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/1746/54112694kw4.jpg

the site and . whatever is black whereas the rest is gray .... kinda nice

[ray|raven]

^iMav, does IE8 display PNG's properly or is it still like IE6 in that area?

[gxsaurav]

it is faster than 7 on xp :)

check this out new in ie 8:

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/1746/54112694kw4.jpg

the site and . whatever is black whereas the rest is gray .... kinda nice

It is a prevention mechanism from phishing.

^iMav, does IE8 display PNG's properly or is it still like IE6 in that area?

The problem is fixed with IE 7 already.

[venom007]

Browsing much better than IE7 but firefox 3 beta 3 is much better than IE8

[debsuvra]

it is faster than 7 on xp :)

check this out new in ie 8:

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/1746/54112694kw4.jpg

the site and . whatever is black whereas the rest is gray .... kinda nice

I already quoted this on my review on my site ;)

[gxsaurav]

Browsing much better than IE7 but firefox 3 beta 3 is much better than IE8

Plz tell us what makes Firefox better then IE 8?

[debsuvra]

Plz tell us what makes Firefox better then IE 8?

Please do not start a flame war here. :-?

I think that Firefox is better renderer than the IE and speedier too. :)

Also I presume IE 8 can automatically block online ads. I cant see any ads in Digit forum and some other places also when using IE 8 BETA.
Anyone please confirm it.

[din]

@debsuvra

Nice review. Even though it is in beta, there will not be much differences I guess ?


Hey, I can still browse all my orkut, facebook, myspace, evermotion, MSDN web pages fine in IE.

Exactly, and this is same for FF ! In short - normal user can select FF or IE and it does not matter much for them.

Making site name black and other parts grayed - of course a good thing, but I doubt whether normal people will get that fast. I mean for a tech user, it is easy to see the site is phishing even without that, now if MS meant (the mechanism of graying the URL) it for the normal user, I am not sure whether it will help. Coz the user may not even see on address bar after he type in the url once. Most people will not even care whats there in address bar, where it goes etc.

Not offtopic, but thunderbird has an option - if the message has some ip address or some phishing url (typed url different form link) it will show a warning message on top which is very clear and visible. If IE comes up with a similar mechanism it will help a lot.

Favorites bar - Is it a new thing ? I am confused, isn't it the same thing that is in Mozilla / FF has ages back itself ? Please correct me if I am wrong.And we need not click to add to fav in FF. We can just drag n drop which I find very useful .

Crash Recovery - Again, FF has it I think ? Recovering all tabs and pages which we were browsing. Or this is something different ?

Activities - Sounds interesting, will give it a try.

[gxsaurav]

I think that Firefox is better renderer than the IE and speedier too.

Right now Firefox's engine is better then IE 7. However with IE 8 this will change as IE 8 has a much better engine, which is a lot standard complient just like firefox. So the rendering engine difference will be nullified with IE 8.

Exactly, and this is same for FF ! In short - normal user can select FF or IE and it does not matter much for them.


Yup, plz tell this to those who compare IE 8 with Firefox on the basis of a benchmark which doesn't even matter.

Making site name black and other parts grayed - of course a good thing, but I doubt whether normal people will get that fast. I mean for a tech user, it is easy to see the site is phishing even without that, now if MS meant (the mechanism of graying the URL) it for the normal user, I am not sure whether it will help. Coz the user may not even see on address bar after he type in the url once. Most people will not even care whats there in address bar, where it goes etc

This is just a notification. Normal people will see a prompt that the site is fake.

Favorites bar - Is it a new thing ? I am confused, isn't it the same thing that is in Mozilla / FF has ages back itself ? Please correct me if I am wrong.And we need not click to add to fav in FF. We can just drag n drop which I find very useful .

Crash Recovery - Again, FF has it I think ? Recovering all tabs and pages which we were browsing. Or this is something different ?


It's not a new feature, but it is a new feature for IE.

IE 8 with IE 7 pro has almost everything Firefox has to offer generally. If you use a specific extention in Firefox, chances are it is also available for IE in some sort of plugin form.

[debsuvra]

Right now Firefox's engine is better then IE 7. However with IE 8 this will change as IE 8 has a much better engine, which is a lot standard complient just like firefox. So the rendering engine difference will be nullified with IE 8.

I wish the engine will be better in the final version. Don't tell me that the IE8 beta engine is at par with FF. IE 8 cannot render a lot of website properly as of now. For example, go to www.apple.com and check the search bar is displaced. Also it cannot display MS owned site www.tafiti.com properly. :(

[iMav]

@debsuvra

Nice review. Even though it is in beta, there will not be much differences I guess ?



Exactly, and this is same for FF ! In short - normal user can select FF or IE and it does not matter much for them.

Making site name black and other parts grayed - of course a good thing, but I doubt whether normal people will get that fast. I mean for a tech user, it is easy to see the site is phishing even without that, now if MS meant (the mechanism of graying the URL) it for the normal user, I am not sure whether it will help. Coz the user may not even see on address bar after he type in the url once. Most people will not even care whats there in address bar, where it goes etc.

Not offtopic, but thunderbird has an option - if the message has some ip address or some phishing url (typed url different form link) it will show a warning message on top which is very clear and visible. If IE comes up with a similar mechanism it will help a lot.

Favorites bar - Is it a new thing ? I am confused, isn't it the same thing that is in Mozilla / FF has ages back itself ? Please correct me if I am wrong.And we need not click to add to fav in FF. We can just drag n drop which I find very useful .

Crash Recovery - Again, FF has it I think ? Recovering all tabs and pages which we were browsing. Or this is something different ?

Activities - Sounds interesting, will give it a try. what is ur point? the features have been a part of other browsers and now have made way into IE doesnt that make IE 8 better than its predecors in other words IE is now as a good a browser in features as others which means that ff and opera only have brand loyalists for themselves and average joe has more than what they need of a browser in IE

when IE did not have certain features people say wtf it does not have this it doesnot have that and when IE gets those features then people start saying wtf this is already thr that is already thr in other browsers :lol:

IE 8 is as i said faster than IE 8 on xp time to make IE as the default browser again :)

[din]

I am not into browser flame wars lol.

Anyway my point - the "new" features listed by IE is new to IE only, it was already there in other browsers, so people who shifted to FF or any other browser because of all the problems of older versions of IE - will not go back to IE. That is my point. Got it ?

Sorry, I didn't understand what you meant by this (I am not good in English :( )
which means that ff and opera only have brand loyalists for themselves
If you meant FF and Opera are used by fanboys only - You are absolutely wrong. A large majority of users shifted from IE to FF or Opera because of the IE issues, IE vulnerabilities, IE more prone to attacks, viruses etc. Yes, I agree IE has changed a lot, but it will not be an easy task for MS to bring back those who already said good-bye to IE, unless IE 8 prove to be the best one.

[naveen_reloaded]

nice to see lots of tiny nice features...

[iMav]

iv been using ie 8 and found that it has a lot of quirks in it as in:

page alignments are not proper (pages were proper in 7 but are shifted to the left too much in 8)

hotmail mail page is not opening at all :?

[Choto Cheeta]

man think digit forum is loading like a hell of mess :( in IE8 :( rest Gmail / Yahoo is performing faster than IE7, much much faster :D

[gxsaurav]

^^^ Time for lazy developers to code there websites according to web standards :D

[Choto Cheeta]

^^

hey thats over optimestic :lol: or rather may be I have made a mistake on my POST... all vBulletine forums are giving problem :(

[ravi_9793]

^^

hey thats over optimestic :lol: or rather may be I have made a mistake on my POST... all vBulletine forums are giving problem :(
I am also facing problem with VB in IE8

[apoorva84]

i downloaded ie8 and installed it today morning...seemed okay...but i'm sticking to firefox...

[gxsaurav]

Well, developers & users asked for better & full web standard support in IE 8, now Microsoft has given us this along with support for old IE 7 rendering mode. Users & developers have no right to complain now, Microsoft gave them what they asked for, if there website is not standard complient, it is there problem not Microsoft's problem.

IE 8 engine right now is not 100%, & there will be more optimisation & changes by the time final version of IE 8 comes. IE 7 UI & Application is already good & all MS has to do is to change the rendering engine, but some new features are not bad either.

Time for developers & us users to stop complaining & start making websites with proper web standards so that they work properly in IE 8, Firefox 3, Opera 9.5 & Safari 3 equally. If there is a site which isn't coded properly with web standards & uses hacks to work properly in IE, then we can always use the IE 7 Mode.

Seems like web site compatibility wise IE 8 is best among all the browsers. Standard & non-standard complient websites both work flawlessly.

[rohan_shenoy]

Anyway my point - the "new" features listed by IE is new to IE only,
+1


people who shifted to FF or any other browser because of all the problems of older versions of IE - will not go back to IE.

Experiencing it myself and agree.




Even if they say that IE 8 passes the "acid test", still it freezes a lot at startup, sometimes while jumping between windows or tabs or while loading a page. I know this release is a beta package, but from my personal experience, I can tell you that its unlikely that the final release will solve this problem either. First I moved to opera and still like it. But there were few Opera non-compliant websites which I needed to visit regularly, so I later changed to FF. Not that FF is 100% free from any problems, but yes, I feel more comfortable because its doesn't test my patience. It loads the pages without freezing. This is what I want. I don't want eye-candy, I want content.

Ofcourse, this is purely my personal opinion. You are free to use any browser of your choice, and I know you will do it ;)

I sometimes pity IE, don't why Microsoft has been treating it as an illegitimate child! IE has been fast increasing its version numbers but my satisfaction of using IE isn't increasing in that proportion.

iv been using ie 8 and found that it has a lot of quirks in it as in:

page alignments are not proper (pages were proper in 7 but are shifted to the left too much in 8)

hotmail mail page is not opening at all :?
I have even problems with position: absolute; and position: relative; in mycode.

[debsuvra]

Also I presume IE 8 can automatically block online ads. I cant see any ads in Digit forum and some other places also when using IE 8 BETA.
Anyone please confirm it.

Hey guys, I previous said about the ad blocker feature present in IE8. Please confirm it over here. :p

BTW how was the review ? May I get some feedback ?? :)

[MetalheadGautham]

all you happy go lucky fanboys and betesters argue whatever you want, but I am still stcking to my faithful and customised Firefox 2.0.0.12

[din]

@totally offtopic ;)
Users & developers have no right to complain now, Microsoft gave them what they asked for, if there website is not standard complient, it is there problem not Microsoft's problem.

I am confused, Did Bill Gates hacked gx's account in Digit Forum and posted this ?? ;)

[gxsaurav]

all you happy go lucky fanboys and betesters argue whatever you want, but I am still stcking to my faithful and customised Firefox 2.0.0.12

You have to, IE is not available in Linux :D. You have no choise of rendering engine in Linux.

In Windows we have IE (maximum compatibility with standard & non-standard complient websites), Firefox (lots of extensions, powerful, memory hog, non native, incompatible with IE only sites), Opera (don't know much), Safari (Webkit, engine is good, browser is pathetic).

In Linux you have Firefox, Opera & Webkit, well....seems like we Windows users are enjoying maximum compatibility & performance now :D

am confused, Did Bill Gates hacked gx's account in Digit Forum and posted this ??

Nope, I am gonna sue him if he hacks my account. I got my super secret weight loss recipe in my skydrive as a PDF file that's why :D

[ray|raven]

You have to, IE is not available in Linux :D. You have no choise of rendering engine in Linux.
And we are not feeling any bad coz we dont have it.
We've got enuf browsers. :p

In Linux you have Firefox, Opera & Webkit, well....seems like we Windows users are enjoying maximum compatibility & performance now :D

We also have KHTML based Konqueror, KHTML is not exactly Webkit.
So, that leaves , IE..and as i said....we dont really need it anyways.
Lolz, we have been enjoying standards compatibility with KHTML and Opera for ages now, and now you guys get a beta of a software that supposedly complies to standards and all you can do is go around and jump saying "We've got compatibility".
Pathetic.

[gxsaurav]

Lolz, we have been enjoying standards compatibility with KHTML and Opera for ages now, and now you guys get a beta of a software that supposedly complies to standards and all you can do is go around and jump saying "We've got compatibility".
Pathetic.

Wait, Firefox, Safari, Opera are not available on Windows :confused: , aren't we also enjoying compatibility since ages

[ax3]

nice new features ...... especially webslices 1 .....

[praka123]

^OK.Epiphany which I use on Debian,Is it available in window$?

[Quiz_Master]

Downloaded for XP SP2.. Download size is 14.6 MBs

Looks wise.. Not much change... I cant even see any new must have feature (Maybe thats cause I tried it for just half hour..),,... Pages seems to load too slow compared to Opera but faster then FireFox... It crashed 2wice (But its beta naa)..
So After testing it.. I am NOT waiting for final version... unless they include features which are not available in any other browser... (In other words the should innovate something new.)

[╬Switch╬]

I really like the new management cente.
A lot better now.
I hope they also add a download manager or someting.

[din]

Offtopic again, why not merging the other thread (http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81899) with this ? Discussion is almost same / similar in both.

[iMav]

no wonder opera sued them .... they were certain that once ie 8 comes out opera will be searching ground ... ff has the OSS community, macs hav safari, ie8 will make sure less no. of casual but technically inclined ppl look for alternatives ....

so lets see now - server 08 - critically well received; ie 8 beta - yes it is promising only acid 3 being a thorn otherwise its got a lot of features right at the click of a mouse; vs 08 - u shudv heard the cheers at the launch event ;); .Net coming to silverlight

so after vista's rather not so good reception ... MS is bouncing back

[gxsaurav]

so after vista's rather not so good reception ... MS is bouncing back

You have no idea what MS has in store for Vista users with WPF, can't even reveal here :D

[iMav]

^^ +1 ... i was wondering when i replied there are there 2 threads or something

[debsuvra]

OFFTOPIC

LOL After marging, gx_sourav got my thread as his but the thread name is mine. :D

[iMav]

You have no idea what MS has in store for Vista users with WPF, can't even reveal here :Dwell the simplest explanation of silverlight is that its a stripped down version of WPF tailored for web and coupled with .Net 3.5 WPF+.Net 3.5+Silverlight is gonna big really big

[Voldy]

i tested it and like webslices and that activity one too
but in all its beta so i will wait till final release hope MS will fixes some problems in its Final release

[debsuvra]

well the simplest explanation of silverlight is that its a stripped down version of WPF tailored for web and coupled with .Net 3.5 WPF+.Net 3.5+Silverlight is gonna big really big

But I think that Silverlight is not correctly working on IE 8 BETA as I failed to open tafiti.com in it. :(

[Krazy_About_Technology]

Well, using IE 8 for 4 days. Its interface now looks much more streamlined (atleast on my vista basic themed lappy, no aero). For the first time in my life i have started using favourites bar, i never found it useful enough, and more than that in almost all browsers, it looks ugly to me.IE7s fav bar also does't looks as good. But the new fav bar integrating smoothly with tab bar looks asthetically pleasing to me. Again, personal choice, it is. Tabs are thin now which is good,also there is more space for tabs since favourites buttons have been moved to links bar. Rendering engine needs quiet a lot of work, but that is acceptible in beta and emulated mode works without problems.
web slices and activities both are welcome features. So all in all a nice release, for now i'll continue to use combination of browsers as i've been doing it b4.

@switch: Yes you are right. The new addon management window is neatly designed now, and its easier to work with. IE7's looked pathetic.

[CadCrazy]

Let us see if it passes my crazy 3.0 test :D

[T159]

Let us see if it passes my crazy 3.0 test :D
do post results here including every parameter :D, a parameter missed and u die

[CadCrazy]

Dude I have purchased bottle of acid.Now i don't know how to throw acid on IE8 to test whether it pass the acid test or not :D

[phr33d0m]

IE 8 is the first web standard complaint version of IE
so it suffers all the probs.(regarding the websites) other browseres havin for the years due to they being standard complaint.

IE8 should stand out from other IE versions and finally m$ made some web standard complaint browser :rolleyes: