Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is out!

[ashwinsinha]

IE8 Review by Download.com :

This beta preview version of Internet Explorer8 is intended for Web developers and other Web professionals. It is not intended to be a functional product for Web surfers.

Internet Explorer 8 beta is intended to enable developers, web developers and IT pros to begin to test the new browser for compatibility with their applications and Web sites. End-user improvements include two new features: Activities and Web Slices. Activities are contextual services that allow easy access to Internet services from any Web page. WebSlices is a new feature for Web sites to connect to their users by subscribing to content directly within a Web page. WebSlices behave just like feeds where clients can subscribe to get updates and notify the user of changes.

Screenshot Link:
http://www.freewarefiles.com/screenshot/ie8beta1.gif


Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 (Developer Preview)

Welcome to Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is a developer preview for web designers and developers to help prepare their websites for the launch of Internet Explorer 8. Some of the new features designed for developers include a developer toolbar and improved interoperability and compatibility.
Internet Explorer 8 is designed to work in standard mode out of this box. However, Microsoft provides a way for users to browse the web in a way similar to Internet Explorer 7 by using the emulate Internet Explorer 7 button on the chrome. Learn more.
The web at your service


Internet Explorer 8 will take the web experience beyond the page. Internet Explorer 8 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. Be one of the first developers to take advantage of improvements in Internet Explorer 8 for your websites and applications. Learn more.



Features :
Over the last ten years, the intensity of web usage and people's reliance on the web has increased dramatically. The evolution of the web has introduced a new set of opportunities, immersive experiences, online services, and standards. Daily life without the web is simply hard for many people to imagine.
With this intensity and reliance, web developers and designers face an evolving set of needs including:

• Interoperability and compatibility
• Built-in tools that help both first time and experienced developers and designers get pages built right
• Browser capabilities that enable innovative experiences

Internet Explorer 8 will take the web experience beyond the page and introduce a new way to seamlessly experience the best of the web, whether you are a web developer writing to standards or an end-user discovering a new online service.



ActivitiesActivities are contextual services that provide quick access to external services from any webpage. Activities typically involve one of two types of actions:

• "Look up" information related to data in the current webpage
• "Send" content from the current webpage to another application

WebSlicesWeb sites can expose portions of their page as a WebSlice that users can subscribe to and bring that content with them on their links bar wherever they are on the web. Users receive update notifications when the content changes. Learn more.

Click below 4 screens:
http://www.microsoft.com/library/med...8_webslice.jpg



Choice of layout engine

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 will ship in standards mode by default. However, three different rendering modes that may be set using the X-UA-Compatible header:

• Quirks mode which supports Internet Explorer 5 and legacy browsers
• Strict mode which supports Internet Explorer 7 and is accessed through the emulate Internet Explorer 7 button
• Internet Explorer 8 standards mode

Cascading style sheets 2.1 compliance

The Internet Explorer 8 layout engine is built to be cascading style sheets 2.1 compliant, enabling web developers and designers to write their pages once and have them render properly across all cascading style sheets 2.1 compatible browsers. However, Microsoft is not finished—hence, Microsoft is seeking feedback from developers working with Internet Explorer 8 Developer Beta 1.
HTML improvements

Many cross-browser inconsistencies have been fixed in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, including:

• Separate URL handing for attributes
• The get/set/remove attribute implementations are now compatible with those of other browsers
• Default attributes for HTML are supported so that they always exist on elements whether specified in the markup or not

Improved namespace support

Internet Explorer 8 simplifies the use of standards-compliant XML-based webpages that support namespace features like scalable vector graphics, XML user interface language, mathematical markup language, and others.
Platform performance improvements

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 improves performance in many Internet Explorer subsystems, such as the HTML parser, cascading style sheets rule processing, markup tree manipulation, the JScript parser, garbage collector runtime, and memory management. More performance work is planned for later beta releases.
Developer tools

Microsoft has heard your feedback that Internet Explorer needs its own built-in Developer Tools, so the new Developer Toolbar enables developers to quickly debug HTML, cascading style sheets, and JavaScript in a visual development environment that is included with the web browser. Developers can quickly identify and resolve issues because of the deep insight the tool provides into the Document Object Model. The Developer Toolbar also allows the layout to be changed on the fly so that each rendering scenario can be tested thoroughly.



Compatibility for existing sites

Internet Explorer 8 includes a more standards compatible layout engine by default which allows developers to build a single standards compatible website for multiple browsers. Internet Explorer 8 Developer Beta uses the Internet Explorer 8 standard mode layout engine by default. However, by clicking on the emulate Internet Explorer 7 button, users can choose when they use the strict mode which supports the Internet Explorer 7 compatible layout engine to retain compatibility with existing sites.
Improved security

Internet Explorer 8 will build upon Microsoft's security and privacy investments to address users' security concerns. In the months ahead, additional new protection, prevention, and privacy services will be added.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 includes:

• Enhanced protection from deceptive websites: As part of an ongoing commitment to privacy and security, Microsoft is making enhancements to the phishing filter in Internet Explorer 8 to provide additional protection against evolving threats to the consumer. With the Safety Filter, Internet Explorer 8 will now protect against a broader set of online threats by analyzing the full URL string. The Safety Filter provides a more granular detection, and these prevention capabilities enable Microsoft to protect against more targeted and sophisticated attacks.
• What Is Domain Highlighting? Domain Highlighting is a technology that highlights the top level domain in the address bar, allowing users to quickly confirm that the website they are visiting is the site they intended to visit. The domain name is in bold and black font, standing out from other characters in the URL which are gray.

Finally,
The direct Download Link!

http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...XP-x86-ENU.exe

[tittat]

but i always love Mozilla.
IE7 needs more resources so that it makes my pc to respond slowly...

[sunils]

Yeh the IE 8 is not upto the mark. It just make an impression as though my system is some 20 years old. By the way, such topic already exists in this form http://forums.x10hosting.com/compute...lorer-8-a.html
ashwinsinha please see the forum before posting same topics again. If you could have just seen this forum first post, you could have find similar thread already is in discussion. Please search the forum before posting new topics.

[Twinkie]

That is cool. I don't use Internet Explorer 7, but if I need to, at least it will be better. IE is too slow and requires unneeded resources. Also in Firefox, I can customize it to make Firefox faster.

[exodiara]

I'm going to download it, see how it goes.

But, I'm a FF person.

[dwalk]

About time, IE 7 was sucking and copied safari RSS for the mac. I hope Microsoft has some usefull original ideas for the new browser.

[chewett]

lol i love my opera

[alexandgruntz]

I may download IE8, since I really have no use for Internet Explorer any more.

[Xemnas]

I'm about to install it now, may as well at least give it a chance (but I'm still not switching from FireFox).

[sunils]

You will surely regret it after you have installed it on your system