RSSIE8 Beta 2 adds standards mode, suggestions, 'Web slices'
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published August 27, 2008, 4:23 PM
Validating all indicators since Monday that a revamped beta was ready for public eyes, Microsoft lifted the lid on Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 8 this afternoon, offering the first glance at some very competitive new features.
With every intention of evening up the score with Firefox 3, Microsoft opened up its public beta process for the first edition of IE8 to contain a full list of new features. Beta 1 (which was launched back in March) concentrated on making the engine work and rendering pages properly; now it's Beta 2's turn to dazzle the public.
"We looked very hard at how people really browse the Web. We looked at a lot of data about how people browse and tried a lot of different designs in front of many kinds of people, not just technologists," reads a blog post from IE General Manager Dean Hatchamovitch this afternoon.
To that end, IE8 will work to "one-up" Firefox in a number of regards, including a completely revised, color-coded tab bar that resembles something that's only in the "laboratory" stage at Mozilla. "IE8...takes into account that there are often relationships between new tabs that users open, and the browser can make it a lot easier to figure out which tabs go with which," Hatchamovitch wrote.
In addition, users will see the first real-world tests of a concept called Web slices. It's a kind of hybrid between a Web site and an add-on, where a branded service can perform a little function on the side or in the background, on the user's behalf. Perhaps Wikipedia can look up the name of someone the user has found on a site, or Amazon can check on the availability of a book title the user has found elsewhere.
The slices feature depends on major Web sites' willingness to embed functionality into their main Web pages that "teaches" IE8 how to integrate these new functions into the user's suite of commands. Some of slices' functionality is also being integrated into the search bar, as participating Web sites will now be able to "suggest" resolutions or completions to user queries, often including thumbnail images accompanying the text. This too appears to be an effort to "one-up" Firefox 3.
As Microsoft confirmed yesterday, the InPrivate privacy envelope will also be tested here for the first time. This will enable a user to switch IE8 into a mode where no details of his personal session is recorded permanently on the system, and all data regarding that session is wiped from both memory and hard disk on exit.
What Microsoft had been calling "standards mode," referring to IE8's new deference to rendering pages in accordance with instructions set forth by standards bodies rather than with how IE6 chose to render them, is being premiered in IE8 Beta 2 as "compatibility mode." Apparently in full awareness of potential problems this may cause, Microsoft actually preceded announcements of Beta 2's availability to the press today with a warning about what we might see.
"Because you're actively engaged in developing and maintaining websites, Microsoft wants to make you aware of a display issue related to Internet Explorer 8," the warning read. "Upon initial release, browsing in default Internet Explorer 8 Standards mode may cause content written for previous versions of Internet Explorer to display differently than intended. To enable existing content to display as expected, Microsoft is providing a compatibility tag that you can add to sites that might be affected. This tag instructs Internet Explorer 8 to display site content as if it were in Internet Explorer 7. This option helps ensure that existing content will continue to display seamlessly in Internet Explorer 8 without requiring any additional code changes."
That tag shows up alongside the new address bar as an icon with either a whole or a broken page, representing the "compatibility" status of the active Web page.
BetaNews will be actively testing IE8 Beta 2, of course, and we'll let you know what we find as soon as we can.
6:50 pm EDT August 27, 2008 - Well, there's some bad news...at least for us. BetaNews doesn't exactly look too good in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2's default rendering mode, which in its current parlance is called "Compatibility View turned off."
Compatibility View is the browser's rendering system for producing pages in the style that Internet Explorer 6 (carried on by IE7) might expect. It's represented in the browser by a "broken page" button that's up by default (after installation), and which can be depressed by the user to turn this mode on.
We also found InPrivate viewing mode not to be a persistent item on the screen, as we first believed based on Microsoft's description yesterday, but instead a command in IE8's new Safety menu. When this mode becomes active, then the InPrivate indicator appears in the status bar; otherwise, it's absent.
More importantly, perhaps, InPrivate browsers are separate windows that are spawned by the main IE8 process. You can run a private and a non-private browser window simultaneously.
We also successfully invoked IE8's new color-coded tabs feature. Here, tabs belonging to pages that are spawned by other pages (for instance, by middle-clicking on a hyperlink) will be represented by like-colored tabs. This way, you know which pages are associated with what sites or site groups.
Superfast AMD X2 computer rendered pages twice as slowly as IE 7. I uninstalled it via the control panel Add/Remove programs and reverted to IE 7.
Installation was painless on XP service pack 3.
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|Works just fine on Vista X64. It will be interesting to see the browser in its final version.
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|Vista Enterprise (32 bit Service Pack 1) gets a big FAIL TO LOAD! "Internet Explorer 8 is not supported on this operating system." Come on M/S, Whadda Ya Doin?????
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|F12, very nice developer tools, btw. Very similar to the Firefox extension.
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|IE8-b2 is interesting ...
BetaNews.com does not render in standard mode (page is blank on WinXP Pro SP3). The browser reports 6 expected objects are missing and fails to display any text or graphics.
When I enable IE6 "compatibility mode", IE8-b2 strips out all the advertising (that I otherwise have to block in Firefox 3 using plug-ins) by apparently ignoring the missing object calls.
However when I use IE8-b2 as the rendering engine in Firefox 3 all looks normal. This is good news since I only use IE (as alternate rendering engine for Firefox) when I run into IE specific features during browsing.
It is good to see Microsoft back working on the companies core product (software). But in my case it is too little, too late. With the exception of Windows XP, I've completely converted to open source software. My hope is that ReactOS will soon be ready for prime time.
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|soooooo.... you're watchin our labs and peepin our plans eh? maybe snaggin our features? well make sure you grab the ones that make the browser not suck. I've had enough operation aborted errors lately to kill a goat. lingering ie6 installs still plague web development efforts. poo poo on half assed browsers like ie7 too. get it right this time.
from what i hear and read added some better debugging stuff as well which is a welcome change.
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|by the way, isnt ie8 only "in the lab" as well?
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|Mmh...nice work so far. End result should be interesting. I'll stick to FF3, for now.
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|AT LAST... the last horse finally crosses the line...
now some of us can actually maybe have ONE stylesheet for ALL browsers *gasp*
the sheer thought of hacking my css after a website is done just to make it render OK in IE makes me sick to my stomach...
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|Beta 2 seems very good, but the lack of tab dragging support makes me want to stay with FF3 for now. I use that feature extensively.
Oddly enough, the BetaNews website refuses to load for me via IE8 Beta 2. It just comes up totally blank.
Go figure...
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|All the features start getting me excited until they become just another way to offer products. Which then becomes cluttered and annoying. Must be able to shut off the features.
Hopefully the browser will render correctly and not introduce a new set of IE fixes needed.
http://afewtips.com
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|I have to say the Beta 2 is looking good, is LIGHTENING fast on a x64 system, and is definatly catching up with Opera 9.6 and Firefox. Now it looks like we have 3 great browsers to choose from!! (no I didnt forget safari)
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|its funny you should call ie a great browser and purposely not throw safari on your list when safari is faster, more standards compliant, more rss/atom friendly, and runs on both mac and pc.
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|your download links for vista 64 bit download beta 1, so....
I have :
uninstalled beta 1
installed beta 2 from your LINK
thought what’s the dif
looked at the package build number (6.2)
downloaded from MS
package build in now 6.3
uninstalled beta 1
installed beta 2.
1 hour later, better get some work done.
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|MS has disabled the links for all IE 8 Beta downloads
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|Yep, it don't work on a LOT of machines!!
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|Looks it has great features, but i am not sure how much.
Mark,
http://blogforinternetusers.blogspot.com
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|ok so some of the things that has kept me from going to IE 7 or Firefox 3 over my existing firefox 2 is the following.
What I got in Firefox 2 I really really like.
Piclens (Working better then ever and totally integrated)
Custom search box to go to where I choose not mandated by the browser.
Total custom theme that makes it look the way I want it to look.
Top notch bookmark toolbar management I like the multi folders on my firefox 2 with all the cool options, treating each folder as a unique list if I so choose.
Really good tabbed browsing. Popups are almost nonexistent anymore in my installation, as well as a very good ad blocking plugin.
and did I mention plugins out the wazoo... most of which have not been updated for firefox 3 yet. (why I have not upgraded)
So for me. IE 8 has a lot to offer, but it still will not make me switch to them anymore then Firefox 3 did when it came out.
Yes firefox 2 is a resource hog. absolutely I can't agree more. But I like what I got in it too, every I installed for a reason and I use it. Until I can do the same with IE 8 and firefox 3, I will not switch from it.
Firefox has 1 more advantage over IE. Portability. Having Firefox on a stick is fantastic, cause I can go anywhere plug in my usb drive and there are all my favorites, themes, plugins, and cookies and everything in my usb drive. making my internet profile both portable and secure cause I take my history with me in the contained installation folder in my usb drive when I leave. Also IT gets around things not being installed on the machine I plug into for whatever reason, cause I have it installed on my USB stick with the firefox browser. Anyways. Both the next gen browsers have a lot of things to live up too to convince people to upgrade. for Firefox, they MUST absolutely MUST get all those plugins updated... They need to help the developers get them updated ASAP so people are willing to make that step to Firefox 3 and know the tools they use everyday will continue to work.
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|http://www.microsoft.com...ta/worldwide-sites.aspx
This website has IE 8 Beta 2 downloads for all versions of Windows that are supported.
Your Welcome ;)
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|"That means that there is not an official beta 2 yet for the public and what you see here is not official. Once Beta 2 does appear on MS, then you can let the arrows fly. Right now it's just either Betanews pirating a copy of Beta2 or mislabeling it."
You should check out the official site: http://www.microsoft.com...lorer/beta/default.aspx
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|Is it really so difficult for you to use the "Post a Reply" button?
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|Iam still amazed that people come here and complain about a Beta. A beta is just that to test and find the problems. also, this is not Beta2, contrary to what Betanews says. Beta 2 has not been released to the general public so if you d/l this from Betanews, I thinkit's fair to say you are either d/ling Beta 1 or a pirated copy of Beta 2.
Finally,in any program, you have a choice to either install by default or do a custome install and I am still amazed that people here haven't wised up that, on any program, you always choose custom. If you use default then you get what you deserve. By choosing custome, you decide what is or isn't installed. With a lot of programs, the default settings will install a lot of junk like Google toolbar, Yahoo toolbar, ask.com or any other junk program.
As far as Vista is concern, I switched to Vista 64 bit Home premium and love it. No complaints at all. Boots up fast, can run several programs etc..
Have a nice day :)
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|tscar13 do you even know what you are talking about?
First of this is beta 2 and second, Beta 2 is avaiolable on Microsoft Worldwide Site so unless Microsoft has uploaded a pirated copy of their own browser to their servers and making it easily available on their site which i dont think they have, you're chatting bull :)
http://www.microsoft.com...ta/worldwide-sites.aspx
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|I stand corrected. When I checked last night it wasn't there. My apologies.
have a nice day:)
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|Microsoft should be far more concerned about fixing the disaster that is Windblows Vista than putting out yet another IE version that is still years behind Safari and Firefox.
Cnet just released a great article today about crappy Vista:
http://macdailynews.com/...p/weblog/comments/18278/
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|As every review site for IE8 has pointed out they are now in line with FF3, Opera and Safari and may bring something more then them for the time being.
You should test a product first before talking as you look like an idiot.
ROFL
Wow, talk about monumental fail
Not only did Cnet completely screw up the source article, macdailynews is just a metoo.
Had anyone bothered to read the correct article instead of taking pieces of it out of context would have seen that pc manufacturers are trying to make their brand stick out more by removing the trialware and adding more functional installed software
http://online.wsj.com/ar...121970813304271145.html
You can't even troll properly...
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|When Vista is capable of doing this I'll throw my beloved Mac in the trash, down grade to a PC and use nothing but IE8:
http://www.apple.com/edu...es/37signals/video.html
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|Guess what I see when click there? "Get the latest quicktime". Everybody is living in youtube era except for Apple. Isn't this stupid?
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|well the guy is writing for open source software, mainly linux, what do you expect him to say, and it is a blog, meaning opinion
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|it is
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|I fail to see which part of the process (in that video) that a PC can't do.
In fact, if you are developing a web app and you happen to need a good database, such as Oracle, SQL Server or DB2, good luck to you if you're on a Mac.
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|I had to use compatability mode to see this website.
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|Yup, me too.
I'm assuming that since this is a Beta News site that they will try to get that working...?
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|The 64 bit vista link brought me to the beta 1 download.
Edit: I dont even see beta 2 on microsofts website. The links to beta 2 are all down.
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|That means that there is not an official beta 2 yet for the public and what you see here is not official. Once Beta 2 does appear on MS, then you can let the arrows fly. Right now it's just either Betanews pirating a copy of Beta2 or mislabeling it.
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|Well, if thier intention is to "Dazzle the public" they have fallen far short of that mark yet once again with this release. This Beta 2 release only loads up marginally faster than the previous beta 1 and is still by far the slowest of any of the major browsers on the market to load.
Loading pages is also slightly improved over the last beta but yet once again, still far and away the slowest of any of the major browsers on the maket. I'm sorry but MS isn't going to impress anyone with this browser release. All they are going to do is continue to drive more and more users over to the likes of Avant, Orca, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Maxthon. I don't know why this would come as a surprise to anyone? All you have to do is load this release up next to any of one of the other broswers and you will see for yourself what I am talking about here. Microsoft has a LONG way to go before this bun is ready going to be ready to take out of the oven.
Microsoft should have learned from their recent market survey that they did where they asked users what the #1 feature they wanted from the next version of Windows was: speed.
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|Hm YMMV but IE8 loads faster then firefox does on my laptop
The average person uses IE still and if this is an improvement over 7 they will continue to use it.
If you are on this website you are not the perceived public
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|Internet Explorer is phenomenally fast on Vista x64 - both the 32 and 64 bit versions. Loading is literally instantaneous. I love Firefox, but after using it for the last year, I've crap canned it because of poor performance, both in loading speed and rendering. FF 3 did not yield an improvement on my machine. I've never understood why people think FF is faster. IE8 is great thus far; this Web site is the only one I've encountered that I have to view with compatibility mode.
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|"This Beta 2 release only loads up marginally faster than the previous beta 1 and is still by far the slowest of any of the major browsers on the market to load."
I believe it is faster than IE8 Beta 1, which is nice, and have actually heard people claim it is faster than Firefox, although I'd imagine it may only beat FF2 in speed as FF3 is a speed demon.
It does seem marginally faster with compatibity mode not enabled but with this site I have to turn it on, so this site is still kinda slow.
If you look at benchmarks of IE6 vs. IE7 vs. IE8 you will see that MS is making major progress. IE6 was just horrible, IE7 vastly improved but is still slow next to competition and IE8 is closing the gap further. With the final release it might actually be able to match up with FireFox and if they can pull that off it'd really turn some heads.
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|This is actually very nice of Microsoft - smart Web Developers will launch initiatives with ads such as "Are You Ready for Internet Explorer 8?" and offer standards compliant coding.
I do hope that Microsoft breaks the Internet so to speak. It'll help the industry and while they might receive flack for it, Microsoft can defer users to try the same sites in Firefox, Safari and Opera and state that Microsoft has embraced standards and moving the Internet forward.
For what it's worth, this page on betanews.com has 65 errors on it ranging from using the outdated 'language' param to the script tag (while NOT using type), then later using TYPE but in uppercase, whereas XHTML -is- case sensitive.
It seems that most of BN's errors are because they copy+pasted in their Google advertising stuff =).
And Google admits that while they are advocates on standards compliancy that they are not there yet =). Silly google.
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|I'm fairly impressed with IE8 Beta 2... It's shaping up to be very promising indeed. Too bad five minutes into playing with it I already discover a bug that wont allow me to delete bookmarks from the favorites tab, but I'm sure Microsoft will take care of that before a final release.
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|The release of the second Beta version of IE8 brings along many great new features.
I'm Jen, part of the team at Me.dium. Today, we join EBay, Amazon, Facebook, Digg and Yahoo as a featured partner for IE8’s Beta 2 launch.
We are so thrilled to be part of IE8, as our goal is to make the internet a more social place. We've got a lot of exciting things going on for the newest version of IE8 like our What’s Hot WebSlice, Me.dium Discovery Accelerator, and Visual Search, (you can check out our social search homepage at http://me.dium.com/search.)
For all the details of Me.dium+IE8 take a look at http://blogme.dium.com/c...makes-hot-stuff-for-ie8/
Thanks, and feel free to email me with any questions or thoughts on Me.dium: Jboyle@me.dium.com
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|Very tacky putting an ad in the comments. I'll be sure to make sure I don't visit your site since are you so inconsiderate of the uses of a comment section.
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|Yeah...heaven forbid she should solicit comments on a beta product on a Web site with "beta" in the URL. Grow up.
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|I thought it was useful information relevant to IE8.
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|Oh yah like all other users are considerate.
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|very nice still a long way to go but i vast impromeant to ie 7
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|'To that end, IE8 will work to "one-up" Firefox in a number of regards, including a completely revised, color-coded tab bar that resembles something that's only in the "laboratory" stage at Mozilla.'
Firefox has the ColorfulTabs extension you can use.
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|Can this be installed in parallel with a IE prod release or will it overwrite it (without the usual hacks I can't be bothered with any longer...)?
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|Disaster. Nicer yes, but Betanews itself and... almost every website out there don't work in default mode.
I give up my hopes on IE8.
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|Blame the website. 99.9% of them are junk when it comes to quality of code and design. Speaking as one who has been a web developer and webmaster (and technically still is).
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