Thread: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

Tired of cutting and pasting information from one website to another for everyday tasks? Now there's a better way. Accelerators give you ready access to the online services you use everyday—from any page you visit. Now you can simply select some text and then click on the blue Accelerators icon. For example, you may be interested in the location of a business featured on a webpage. In the past, you would need to copy the address from the webpage, navigate to another the webpage for a mapping service, and paste in the address. With the "Map with Live Maps" Accelerator in Internet Explorer 8, you can get an in-place view of a map displayed directly on the page.


Common accelerator showing driving directions

The above was just one example of the many things you can do with Accelerators. Internet Explorer 8 includes a number of useful Accelerators that includes search, mapping, word definitions, translation, blogging, and e-mail. You have full control over which Accelerators are enabled and which service providers are associated with an Accelerator, so you can easily get definitions from one site, view maps from a second site, and search with a third.

What's more, we've partnered with a number of companies like eBay, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, Facebook, and more to create their own Accelerators that help you reach beyond the page, and the list is growing.

You can discover other useful Accelerators by selecting the More Accelerators option on the right-click menu. You can easily delete, disable, or enable Accelerators by clicking on Manage Add-ons from the Tools button on the upper right-hand corner of your browser window.


The "more accelerators" option menu

Enhanced navigation

Compatibility View

Internet Explorer 8 is a beta release and some websites may not yet be ready for Internet Explorer 8. Click the Compatibility View toolbar button to display the website as viewed in Internet Explorer 7, which will correct display problems like misaligned text, images, or text boxes. This option is on a per site basis and all other sites will continue to display with Internet Explorer 8 functionality. To go back to browsing with Internet Explorer 8 functionality on that site, simply click the Compatibility View button again.



You can maintain a list within Internet Explorer 8 for sites that should be displayed in Compatibility View. From the Command Bar, select Tools, and then select Compatibility View Settings to add and remove sites from this list. There are also options for viewing all websites and intranet sites in Compatibility View.



Enhanced Tabbed Browsing

It can be difficult to keep track of many tabs at once. Internet Explorer 8 introduces Tab Groups, which make tabbed browsing easier. When one tab is opened from another, the new tab is placed next to the originating tab and color coded, so that you can quickly discern which tabs have related content. If you close a tab that's part of a group, another tab from the same group is displayed, enabling you to remain within the context of the current task rather than suddenly looking at an unrelated site.



By right-clicking on any tab, you can close the tab, close the tab group, or remove the tab from a group. From the same menu, you can refresh one or all tabs, open a new tab, reopen the last tab closed, or see a list of all recently closed tabs and reopen any or all of them.

Better Find On Page

Internet Explorer 8 includes a completely redesigned Find On Page toolbar, which is activated by pressing Ctrl-F or choosing Find On Page from the Edit menu or Search box drop-down. Press the Alt key if you do not see the Edit menu option.



The toolbar is integrated below the tab row, so that it does not obscure any content on the page. Instead of waiting for you to type an entire search term and hit Enter, the toolbar searches character-by-character as you type. Matches are highlighted in yellow on the page so that they're easy to identify.

Smarter Address Bar

The Address Bar in Internet Explorer 8 makes navigation easier than ever, becoming a highly useful search tool that enables you to just type a few characters and then go directly to the desired site. It searches across your History, Favorites, and RSS Feeds, displaying matches from the website title or any part of the URL. As you type, matched characters are highlighted in blue so you can identify them at a glance. In addition, you can delete any address in the drop-down box by clicking on the red X. This is especially useful for getting rid of misspelled URLs.



Redesigned New Tab page

The New Tab page loads quickly and provided links make it easier to get started on your next browsing activity:

Use an Accelerator: Now you can use an Accelerator using any text you have copied to the clipboard.

Start InPrivate Browsing: Two things happen when you start inPrivate Browsing: your browsing activities, history and cookies are not retained, and third party web content providers may be blocked from tracking your online activities without your consent.

Reopen closed tabs: Reopen a tab that you've closed in your current browsing session, which can be helpful when a tab is accidentally or prematurely closed.

Reopen your last browsing session: Reopen all tabs that were open when Internet Explorer 8 was last closed, which can be useful if you accidentally close the browser.




Improved Zoom

Adaptive Page Zoom improves upon traditional zoom-in/zoom-out functionality in the browser by intelligently relaying out the page content and eliminating the need to scroll left and right. This will improve your ability to magnify pages with small fonts and be able to read more on the web.

A better back button

When using rich applications such as mapping on the Internet, you may be taken to the beginning of the application instead of the previous page when you hit the back button. Now when you hit the back button, more pages will behave the way you expect.

Increased performance

Internet Explorer 8 includes many performance improvements that contribute to a faster, more responsive web browsing experience in the areas that matter most. Internet Explorer 8 starts quickly, loads pages fast and instantly gets you started on what you want to do next with a powerful new tab page. In addition, the script engine in Internet Explorer 8 is significantly faster than in previous versions, minimizing the load time for webpages based on JavaScript or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX).

Improved favorites and history management

Enhanced Favorites Bar

Now there's a better place to keep track of your top favorites. You can save Favorites, RSS Feeds, and Web Slices to the Links Bar that appears across the top of the browser, quickly navigating to the sites and content that you care about most.



One Click Favorites

Press the One Click Favorites button and immediately add the page you're browsing to the Links Bar, saving you extra clicks.

RSS feeds on Links Bar

The links bar has been updated so you can drag an RSS feed to your links bar, making it easier to see when important feeds are updated.

History sorting

The new Browsing History view allows you to sort your history by Site Name, Most Visited Sites, Order Visited Today, and Date, making it easier to organize and locate sites in your history.

History searching

In Internet Explorer 8, you can search for pages in history by typing keywords, making it easier to locate sites when browsing your history.



Instant search

Search suggestions

Now you can type a search term and see real-time, relevant search suggestions from your chosen search provider and your browsing history. Click on a suggestion at any time to immediately execute the search without having to type the entire word or phrase.

Visual search

Internet Explorer 8 is partnering with top search providers like Live Search, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, Amazon, and more to deliver direct results and "visual search" images that provide you with immediate answers. For example, typing "Seattle weather" with Live Search will instantly show you a preview of the current weather directly in the Search Box drop-down. Look for more visual search results with your preferred search providers.



More improvements

Because people often use search to get back to sites that they've visited before, Internet Explorer 8 includes matches from your History in the bottom part of the Search Box drop-down.

An integrated "Find On Page" button also has been added to the instant search box, enabling you to search for text on the current webpage. Also, you can change the width of the Instant Search Box by dragging its left edge, making it easier to see long search strings as they are typed.

You can easily delete, disable, or enable Search Providers by clicking on Manage Search Providers from the drop-down arrow in the Search box or Manage Add-ons from the Tools button on the upper right-hand corner of the browser window.



Web Slices

How many times a day do you check for updates to e-mail, weather reports, sports scores, stock quotes, auction items email and so on? Until now this was a manual process, where you had to go to those sites to check for changes or new information.

Using Web Slices, you can keep up with frequently updated sites directly from the Favorites Bar. If a Web Slice is available on a page, a green Web Slices icon will appear in the upper-right hand corner of the browser. You can then easily subscribe and add them to the Favorites Bar or delete Web Slices that are no longer desired.



When new information becomes available, the Web Slice will become highlighted. When you click on the Web Slice in the Favorites Bar, it previews relevant information. Clicking on the preview takes you directly to the site for more information.



As with Accelerators, Microsoft has taken a platform-based approach to Web Slices, enabling virtually any developer to create them by merely adding a few lines of code to existing pages. For example, eBay has built a Web Slice that enables you to monitor an auction. Microsoft is working with partners to create more Web Slices, so, look for more Web Slices to become available on your favorite sites.

Add a Web Slice to your Favorites Bar

Hover your mouse over an item on a webpage.

If that item incorporates Web Slice functionality, the Web Slice icon Web Slice icon will appear. Click on the icon to add this "slice" of the web to your Favorites Bar. Now you can keep up to date with this information no matter where you are on the web.

To delete, right-click on your Web Slice and click Delete.

Internet Explorer 8 Automatic crash recovery


Tab isolation

If a website or add-on causes a tab to crash in Internet Explorer 8, only that tab is affected. The browser itself remains stable and other tabs remain unaffected, thereby minimizing any disruption to your browsing experience.

Crash recovery

If one or more of your tabs do crash, your tabs are automatically reloaded and you are returned to whatever page you were on before the crash.

InPrivate Browsing

Sometimes you don't want to leave any trace of specific web browsing activity, such as when checking e-mail at an Internet café or shopping for a gift on a family PC. InPrivate Browsing in Internet Explorer 8 helps prevent your browsing history, temporary Internet files, form data, cookies, and usernames and passwords from being retained by the browser, leaving no evidence of your browsing or search history.

You can start InPrivate Browsing by opening a new tab and selecting Start InPrivate Browsing or selecting it from the Safety button on the top right corner of the browser window. Once you complete this action, Internet Explorer 8 will launch a new browser session that won't record any information, including searches or webpage visits. To end your InPrivate Browsing session, simply close the browser window.



InPrivate Blocking

Today websites increasingly pull content in from multiple sources, providing tremendous value to consumer and sites alike. Users are often not aware that some content, images, ads and analytics are being provided from third party websites or that these websites have the ability to potentially track their behavior across multiple websites. InPrivate Blocking provides users an added level of control and choice about the information that third party websites can potentially use to track browsing activity.

To use this feature, open a new tab and select InPrivate Browsing, or select "InPrivate Browsing" from the Safety menu. To end your InPrivate Browsing session, simply close the browser window.

Note: Because InPrivate Blocking is designed to watch for and block only third-party content that appears with a high frequency across sites you visit, no content is blocked until such levels are detected, nor is any such content blocked which is served directly by the site you are visiting. Depending on your web browsing activity and sites visited, the amount of time it can take before such content is automatically blocked can vary widely. However, at any time, you can customize which third-party content is blocked or allowed though subscribing to InPrivate allow and block feeds.
Enhanced delete browsing history

Now when deleting browsing history, you can choose to preserve cookies and temporary Internet files for sites in your Favorites folder. This helps to protect your information and privacy while preserving your data on your trusted favorite sites. Your preferences and cookies are preserved, helping you to get to your trusted sites faster with greater confidence.

Stay safer online

As the web continues to increase in complexity, so do the number of ways that hackers and malicious websites can attempt to send viruses, damage computers, obtain personal information, and monitor online behavior.

Did You Know?

Malware is software that designed to damage your computer, such as a computer virus. It may download without your knowledge or permission.

Phishing allows criminals to obtain your personal information (like your credit card number) by pretending to be a legitimate organization, such as your bank.

Internet Explorer helps protect against these attacks and more. Delivering a trustworthy browser means providing a highly secure and reliable browser—one that respects user choice and helps keep users in control of their PC and their information.

SmartScreen Filter

Internet Explorer 8's new SmartScreen Filter builds upon our leadership in the detection of phishing sites and now helps protect you against inadvertent installation of malware—or malicious software—which can compromise your data, privacy, and identity while also damaging your computer and valuable data. Today Internet Explorer is detecting over 1 million attempts to visit known phishing sites weekly.

With our enhancements in Internet Explorer 8 and added telemetry and technologies, users are now afforded a higher level of protection from these emerging threats.

While we recommend all users enable SmartScreen, you can enable or disable it at any time. You can also help improve the web for everyone by reporting suspected malicious sites through this tool.

If the SmartScreen Filter is active and you attempt to visit a website that isn't considered safe, the below screen will appear prompting you to take alternative actions.



When active, the SmartScreen Filter will also notify you when you attempt to download software that is potentially unsafe.

Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Filter

Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attacks have emerged as a leading exploit against web servers and web applications. Internet Explorer 8 introduces the capability to detect malicious code running on compromised websites, helping to protect you from these exploits which can lead to information disclosure, cookie stealing, account/identity theft, and more.

Domain Highlighting

Domain Highlighting lets you more easily interpret web addresses (URLs) to help you avoid deceptive and phishing sites that attempt to trick you with misleading addresses. It does this by highlighting the domain name in the address bar in black, with the remainder of the URL string in gray, making for easier identification of the sites true identity.



Data Execution Detection (DEP)

Data Execution Prevention (DEP), on by default in Internet Explorer 8 in Windows Vista Service Pack 1, is a security feature that can help prevent damage to your computer from viruses and other security threats by preventing certain types of code from writing to executable memory space.

Get Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, the latest version of Microsoft's free web browser. Download

Hope this gives FF3 some competition.
Any word on when the final will be out ?
IE7 was in Beta for a long long time.

Surely the guys behind FF3 are watching very keenly.
Its possibly the start of the new browser war.

^^ Please checkout Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Fact Sheet: An overview of the features and benefits of Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer 8.