Eager to further distance itself from the growing popularity of Mozilla’s open source Firefox Web browser, Microsoft Corp. has surprised many by following this week’s Internet Explorer 8 demo given at the MIX08 conference, by actually launching the official Internet Explorer 8 beta.
Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 8 beta Web browser. Credit: Microsoft.
Available for immediate download (recommended for Web developers and designers), the English language beta offers a host of new features and experience enhancements, such as Facebook and eBay integrations, AJAX Web page workability and standards compliance.
“Internet Explorer 8 will take the web experience beyond the page,” trumpets Microsoft, adding that its latest browser “introduces a new way to seamlessly experience the best of the web whether you are a web developer writing to standards or a user discovering a new online service.”
Using its new ‘WebSlices’ technology, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 allows users to gather updates from various Web sites via the browser’s toolbar, without ever having to actually visit the site(s) in question, unless they choose to.
For example, Facebook members will be able to check the status of their personal pages through the IE8 toolbar integration, while users participating in online auctions at eBay will be able to use the toolbar to monitor ongoing bid progress. Other current WebSlice partners will see the inclusion of access to StumbleUpon and MSN news headlines.
ReadWriteWeb explains that WebSlices will enable Internet Explorer 8 users to “subscribe to portions of a page that update dynamically, in order to receive updates from that page as content changes.”
The WebSlice application will essentially resemble a ‘Favourites’ or ‘Bookmarks’ listing on the browser. However, the individual page links come complete with a little action icon, which, when clicked, opens a small window of live Web content relevant to the specific page.
Learn more about standards compliance, AJAX workability and more -- or download the beta for hands-on experience -- by clicking here .
NickMar 14th, 2008 - 05:25:38
Try it at your own risk.
Ive been running this on my home pc and its slow. Ive used it on dialup and at times it will bring up teh dialup box saying of beenm discounted by i havent.
I know another guy who is running it for a week and he already has spyware.
They need to do more work on it. Its its not ready for use yet.
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