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IE8 Beta Released To Public

Tim writes "English, German, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese versions of Internet Explorer 8 have been released for public beta. New features include accelerators, which provide instant context menu access for a number of common tasks; automatic crash recovery, which prevents a single page's failures from taking down your entire browser; and browser privacy, a feature that didn't make Firefox 3. I'm primarily a Firefox user, and I've been using IE8 at work (MS) for the past few weeks. It's a definite improvement over previous versions, and brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for. Give it a spin, submit feedback, and help keep all browser makers on their toes by facing each other's competition."

21 of 605 comments (clear)

  1. What is really worrying is... by Pvt_Ryan · · Score: 5, Informative

    timesonline.co.uk Writes:

    Once the setting is chosen, others using the same computer will not be able to see which sites have been accessed. Other browsers have similar functions, but this one is far more prominent. Although casual users cannot see the previous user's search history, authorities such as the police will be able to access it if necessary.

    So basically the data still exists, just people who nothing will not be able to see it, I knew we were wrong in all those security model that try and keep the experts out. It's really Joe "average" Blogs we should have been protecting against all this time.. DOH!!!

    I'll definitely be surrendering Firefox for IE now..

  2. Re:Oh, I'd like a version by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 3, Informative

    You want MS to provide a linux version so that you can either state your intent to never install it, or so that you can sh*t on it? I'm sure they'll get right on that...

    No need to wait for MS to do that. I'm sure this will be in ies4linux eventually, thanks to Sérgio. Want it sooner? Donate time or money to either ies4linux or to Wine. Or both.

  3. Re:Standards-complient or not? by Khuffie · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to Ars Technica, sites with proper HTML information will display in standards mode, and sites without will not. There's a button at the bottom that allows you to switch between the two. I have to say, I like IE8. It won't make me switch from Opera, but it's much speedier to use than IE7, and I'll probably find myself using it instead of Firefox whenever I come across a website that doesn't work in Opera. (Which is rare, and whenever that happens and I launch Firefox, it prompts me if I want to update, which gets annoying).

  4. Re:Browser privacy by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 3, Informative

    Use Opera Portable. It obliterates (erases AND overwrites) any and all signs of your activity when you exit. And it's had that feature for several years. Perfect for visiting internet cafes or libraries.

  5. Re:Standards-complient or not? by ByOhTek · · Score: 4, Informative

    DAMNIT

    I didn't mean entomology, I meant etymology...

    But, using both the original and current meaning, that was a nice error...

    --
    Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
  6. Re:Shows what competion can do. by will_die · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to the European and thier language report German is the 2nd highest known language in the EU at 32% of the population speaking the language. Spanish is at 15% and is 5th.
    For the top 5 it is:
    English 51%
    German 32%
    French 26%
    Italian 16%
    Spanish 15%

    Also by mother tounue German is at 18% and Spanish is at 9%

  7. Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate by Jumperalex · · Score: 4, Informative

    What I'm really curious to see, and I can only assume it will be there, is if they also include the ability to LOCK-OUT the InPrivate feature. Many corporate (and especially government) IT/legal departments excplicitly WANT your browsing to be tracked. Sure I can go in and delete stuff manually (except when I am not given permissions to access that folder ... which I'm not) but right now all of our standard desktop configurations prevent you from clicking the "clear private data" button.

    So not only are the advertisers (as I've read elsewhere) possibly not going to like this feature, but many corp/gov types won't install it until/unless they can excplicitly prevent its use.

    --
    If you can't be good, be good at it!
    1. Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate by Hanners1979 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'd fully expect all of that those kind of settings to be available via Group Policy, you've been able to configure most of IE's major settings across your network that way for some time now.

    2. Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate by Jellybob · · Score: 3, Informative

      Any IT department that *really* wants your browsing history is going to route any traffic on port 80 through a proxy, so they can get reports on what you've been doing from one central location, instead of having to trawl through every user's history. The InPrivate feature isn't going to stop that being possible, so IT departments are fine.

  8. Re:Shows what competion can do. by TheP4st · · Score: 5, Informative

    Native Spanish speaking population in the world 330 million
    Native German speaking population in the world 100 million

    --
    "I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
  9. Re:Shows what competion can do. by nhstar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Opera is a good choice, and a fine browser. And it is still, hands-down best for testing standards compliance (in my humble opinion).

    The only real fault they made at getting market share was waiting as long as they did before making it available for free. I don't pretend to know the finer-points of their business model, or Mozilla's for that matter, but people saw two browsers available gratis and one where you paid $35us (if i remember right...). If you could buy a Porsche or or have a VW, which would you be driving?

    --
    --- no sig to see here... move along.
  10. Re:Standards-complient or not? by wwahammy · · Score: 3, Informative

    It passes the ACID 2 test on its default settings. I'm using it right now in fact (I like the IE RSS reader) and it actually renders Slashdot correctly. IE7 has been a disaster for the last few months on Slashdot. Not sure what changed but it didn't work at all.

    Is it compliant with every single standard Firefox is? No. CSS Selectors I know is an area that still isn't up the standard. It is a lot closer than IE7 is though.

  11. Re:Shows what competion can do. by jorx · · Score: 5, Informative

    Opera wasn't free until Firefox existed... so, there's that...

  12. Re:Shows what competion can do. by GIL_Dude · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually almost all Microsoft Beta code is available in the same languages at first - English, German, Japanese, and sometimes Simplified Chinese. The thing is that they are trying for coverage of the code to make sure localizations fit dialogs, etc. For example, of the languages that use an English like character set (what is it called, Roman or whatever), German tends to have the longest words / phrases. So by covering German they find out whether all of the localizations are going to fit in the space provided. In a similar way, by covering Japanese (and in this case Simplified Chinese) they are covering localizations in non-Roman character sets. Its really not about the number of users / speakers - its about the coverage of testing on the localizations and getting them to fit properly.

  13. Still not 100% complient with CSS2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    It doesn't get CSS generated content images right. That's four years old and all other modern browsers can do it. Bah.

  14. Hmmm - clicking favorites crashes IE8.. by GuyverDH · · Score: 3, Informative

    Installed it.

    Kept google as search engine.
    declined accelerators
    declined web screening

    turned off view of favorites, menu bar.

    click favorite button that appears next to tabs, crash...

    repeat the experiment...

    uninstalled IE8 3 minutes after installing...

    --
    Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
  15. Re:Standards-complient or not? by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nonsense. IE remains the majority browser. Developers who want to actually produce a product that works correctly for the majority of users target IE first (because Firefox usually does the right thing when dealing with IE-isms, and IE-isms are easier to undo to target Firefox than vice versa).

    No, developers use Firefox to do their development. Why? Because of extensions like Web Developer and Firebug and YSlow and Selenium and Firecookie and FirePHP and Venkman. To name a few.

    The fact that Firefox is also highly standards compliant is a bonus.

    After you've used all these tools to get your application working properly, that's when you check it out in IE and see if there are any problems that need further attention.

    As for the whole trustworthiness angle, well, call it FUD if you want. It's easy enough to submit code for independent critical review. When organizations don't choose to do so, the uncertainty and doubt that remains is real and intentionally created. Personally, I don't use MS products any more for anything outside of testing my web apps in IE, and have no intention of ever doing so again. I do not choose to trust them.

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  16. Re:Shows what competion can do. by pcolaman · · Score: 5, Informative

    They primarily speak Portuguese, not Spanish.

  17. Re:So what? by jrumney · · Score: 3, Informative

    The number of hindi speakers is probably 4 times that.

    It's about 1.1 times that actually, there's almost the same gap between Hindi and Spanish as there is between native Spanish and English speakers. Mandarin on the other hand has almost as many speakers as those three combined.

  18. Re:new features not in Firefox .. by et764 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Your last Firefox session closed unexpectedly. YOu can restore the tabs and windows from your previous sessions, or start a new session if you think the problem was related to a page you were viewing.

    Ahh, you haven't actually seen IE8's automatic crash recovery feature then. Each of the tabs are isolated from each other, so if one tab crashes it doesn't take down the whole browser. The tab just goes away and then pops back up with a message saying IE recovered the tab. It's definitely not the same thing as "Restore Previous Session."

  19. Re:So what? by jrumney · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hindi is not the national language, it is a national language, one of several including English. And considering that around a third of India's population is illiterate, second languages are not as widely spoken as you would think.