Internet Explorer 8 features uncovered, public beta coming today?

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Microsoft, Beta

Internet Explorer 8 features uncovered, public beta coming today?

by Brad Linder Mar 5th 2008

Update: Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 is available for downloading now. And please let us know what you think of Microsoft's latest web browser.

Microsoft has posted two new web pages related to Internet Explorer 8 beta 1. The first page outlines some of the new features you'll be able to find in the next generation web browser, while the other page offers download links. Unfortunately the download links don't seem to be live yet, but we wouldn't be surprised if they start working later today as the MIX08 conference gets underway.

In the meantime, here are some of those new features:

Automatic crash recovery works much like the crash recovery feature in Firefox. If IE8 crashes, the next time you load your browser it will attempt to restore your tabs and other data
Activities feature which makes it easy to send a link, web page, image, or snippet of text to Digg, Windows Live Maps, Facebook, Dictionary.com or other online services without copying and pasting. Users can install and manage their activities.
WebSlices allow users to subscribe to just a portion of a web site. Web publishers can add WebSlices to their web page and IE8 can automatically discover WebSlices and add them to your favorites bar. You can view them in a drop-down window like the one you see in the image to the right.

Internet Explorer 8 also has a redesigned favorites bar and improved phishing filtering.

[via Neowin]

Tags: ie8, internet-explorer, internet-explorer-8, webslices

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Alex M said 10:49AM on 3-05-2008

And apparently it also has boatloads of CSS and JavaScript improvements. I am actually curious about it.

Safety Dancer said 11:33AM on 3-05-2008

If its a pub beta Ill give it a go.

James said 11:43AM on 3-05-2008

Am curious about the "slices" -- does the page developer have to explicitly make a section of a page flagged as "sliceable" or can I somehow define a "slice" myself?

Seanross said 12:19PM on 3-05-2008

I dont know about all this public beta crap, last time I tried the "IE7 Public Beta", Gave nothing but trouble and a ton of sites didn't recognize it, always had to keep going back to 6 or Firefox

Mondo Apero said 1:04PM on 3-05-2008

Well, it seems like MS might be trying to get back in to the game in the browser market if this is anything to go by. After the 'meh, whatever' of IE7, IE8 looks interesting.

They're 'borrowing' some features from Firefox (nothing wrong with that - crash recovery, etc.), they're innovating (WebSlices) and they're promising good (Acid2) standards support.

And all of this after changing their mind over the original plan to ship IE8 with broken standards support, although I suspect that was more to do with potential fines from the EU, than the howls of indignation from the web dev community.

Rocketboy said 2:31PM on 3-05-2008

"Automatic crash recovery works much like the crash recovery feature in _Opera_. If IE8 crashes, the next time you load your browser it will attempt to restore your tabs and other data"

Fixed it for you.

Mysterius said 3:10PM on 3-05-2008

@CoffeeDaze: Confirmed!

CoffeeDaze said 4:02PM on 3-05-2008

The link is live now!

Jack said 4:08PM on 3-05-2008

IE8 doesn't render anything correctly. I looked at the Acid2 test, and that renders wrong, Google Reader is totally screwed up. Heck, even Windows Live Mail doesn't render right. I know it's just a beta, but they should have fixed these kinks. Firefox did.

kingkool68 said 4:11PM on 3-05-2008

Ah bugger my work pc is not up to date. I'll have to wait to get home to install IE8.

joelpurvis said 4:49PM on 3-05-2008

It doesn't work with Vista SP1. Bleh!

GTH, M$ said 6:58PM on 3-05-2008

Note to Microsoft: Abandon IE. Ship Firefox with Windows.
IE8 = poor standards support = s**t

callum said 8:28AM on 3-31-2008

Mondo, they aren't innovating webslices, actually... Apple's Safari does that on the Mac OS.

I still like IE 6 and I miss IE 5.5 :[

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