RSSInternet Explorer 8 Beta 1 goes live
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published March 5, 2008, 4:07 PM
FROM MIX 08 - At last, we'll all be able to see "Standards mode" for itself, and whether the new default operating mode for Internet Explorer truly adheres to written W3C standards as Microsoft now says it has bound its browser to do.
There's a lot of activity surrounding the public release of Beta 1 of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8...and we mean that quite literally. While its general appearance is not in as stark a contrast with its predecessor as IE7 was from IE6, there is one prominent feature about it that developers such as Scott Guthrie were proud to show off this morning in Las Vegas: It's called "activities."
In a similar sense to how right-clicking on an object brings up a list of commands, in what has been called the "context menu" or, from time to time, the "actions menu," IE8 has come up with a way for content suppliers outside of an active Web site to supply functionality to terms inside of a Web page. It's through an activities menu which is loaded in advance into IE8 using an XML-based template. Users can then right-click on content from anywhere to see a list of services that may pertain to it, or they can choose those same services from a new Activities button on the IE8 toolbar.
Download IE8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista from FileForum
Download IE8 Beta 1 for Windows XP from FileForum
"An example could be that you are on the Web site of a local dealer and are interested in buying something there," writes Microsoft architect and evangelist Alexander Strauss on his personal blog this morning. "Unfortunately this dealer has no delivery service and also does not have a store locator. So in that case you would usually take the address and get directions using a mapping tool of your choice. Now you could do the same with a mapping activity. But now the big difference is that you can do it in the context of the dealers Web page. Just mark the address, right-click, and choose the mapping activity of your choice."
Continuing the tradition of "embrace and extend," IE8 also borrows a few features made popular by other browsers, albeit renamed. WebSlices, for instance, provides a means for serving up a small chunk of content either as a subordinate part of another Web page, or through a perpetual link. That link can reside in IE8's newly renamed "Favorites Bar," which now not only holds bookmarked pages but also general shortcuts to everyday files. (Mac users will note a similar feature in the Safari browser called WebClips.)
The Phishing Filter has reportedly been expanded to become the Safety Filter, and promises to encompass other possible malware threats. And IE8 has now been endowed with an automatic crash recovery (ACR) system that can pull content back up after a restart or reboot.
As a Microsoft white paper published just today reveals (PDF available here), the new system won't just pull up the lost Web page, but anything you may have been typing into that page at the time the browser or system crashed.
"Contextual work is 'soft work' that is manifested in the state of the browser," the white paper reads. "It may not be as painful to lose this type of work, but it is nevertheless frustrating when it happens...The ACR feature will help prevent contextual and compositional work loss in the unlikely event of a crash, hang, or an accidental application closure."
BetaNews will be learning more about Internet Explorer 8 throughout the week, as our coverage of MIX 08 in Las Vegas continues.
This was exciting until I saw the screen shot.
I run into people everyday that absolutely hate the layout of IE7.
I hate the fact that you can't alter it in any useful way.
Essentially MS thinks that their users are stupid and have no need to personally customize or streamline their Internet browser.
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Odd that your comment was edited before the previous post was posted. Time seems to have gone the wrong way for you. :)
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I have XP Service Pack 3 on my laptop Installed fine but won't install on my Desktop
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http://www.microsoft.com...ily/ie/ie8/default.mspx
This is the correct link to IE8 on Micr0$0ft.
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Seems like a nice improvement, but It has broken quite a few sites include one of Microsoft's own site http://www.windowsmarket...tegory.aspx?bcatid=3500
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These activities sound like what yahoo/google tool bars already add. It's good to see a standardized API though - maybe that opens the door for a simple kill em all ad filter.
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I'm gonna wait until about 3 months after IE8 final is out before giving it a try. So far, Maxthon 2 is giving me almost everything I need in a browser. The only critical feature it's missing as far as I'm concerned is automatic saves of text boxes. So in case I hit "submit" and the site/connection farts (cookie/session expiration, temp drop in wifi, site overload), then I still won't lose my typing. Not such a biggie, though, since I hit ctrl+x+v (copy with visual confirmation) very often, and my clipboard manager keeps them all readily accessible. But the poor masses aren't that advanced/techy.
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Just give up! Microsoft's beta's are the worst!
time to re-format!
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"...the new system won't just pull up the lost Web page, but anything you may have been typing into that page at the time the browser or system crashed."
Security holes anybody? Perhaps in general a future issue?
lol "...in the unlikely event of a crash, hang, or an accidental application closure." So Microsoft. MS fanboys, hold the comments.
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Keeps on breaking.
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BETA's for ya!
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Hmm...indeed, it's pretty nifty.
It comes dang close to passing the acid2 test...certainly better than IE7. Hmm...already notice a problem clicking in the text area sometimes puts the cursor in the wrong spot.
I'm sure something that noticeable will be fixed in Beta 2...anyone else notice this?
Other than that, it is the first time I have ever personally witnessed a new version of a web browser that truley was faster on the same machine that I used the older version on. Betanews' page loads noticeably faster in IE8.
Also, the little things--highlighting the top-level domain name in the URL bar and greying the rest of the URL can be useful, as little of a change as it is, and when I close the browser with more than one tab in use, it asks me if I want to close just the tab or the whole window (IE7 just asks if you want to close the window or cancel).
The way it underlines hyperlinks when you mouse over them is different as well--more noticeable. These are the main things I've noticed just in the first few minutes of using it. Nothing superbly impressive, but certainly welcome.
The text in here is also intermittently refreshing in a noticeable blink that's anoying me, another pesky bug I'm sure Microsoft will fix before the next beta...
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wth so i cant install this cause i have vista service pack 1?
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It does not work with beta versions of SP1, which no one should still be using anyway. Works with SP1 final, but it's buggy. A lot of pages are messed up so it's not really usable.
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The messed up pages are likely due to the page having broken browser detection and non-standard code written for IE6/7 rendering.
IE8 will make the web appear broken for some time until developers recode the pages to allow the now supported standard CSS/XHTML that opera and mozilla products have been displaying for ages.
This is a good thing :) About fscking time!!
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@ Sven123456789, internetworld7 and every other whiner, listen carefully:
IE8's NEW INTERFACE HAS NOT BEEN IMPLEMENTED YET!!!
@talkprice: software updates happen because software standards evolve and you have to keep up to date, and for if you don't know, a CONTEXT exists which mainly consists of Firefox 3 betas by these days!!!
and last but not least, IT'S A BETA; IT'S NOT COMPLETE!!!
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I'm giving in an honest opinion.This interface most likely will be the basis for IE8. Stupid comments like yours make the rest of us fall out of our chairs laughing.
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Can Barely make it out in this pic. But it looks like IE7 which is a disaster. So they haven't learned a thing it seems.
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Windows Vista looked like XP in the early betas. XP looked like Windows 2000 in it's early betas, and so on. Get the idea? :)
The foundation comes first, the paint comes later.
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Sven# is having a really hard time to get that simple idea into his head...
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Interesting, Ill have to try it out.
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It's very nice Internet Explorer 8 but they need more improvement they can't read arabic web page properly when I visit this web site http://www.alarabiya.net/
but http://www.aljazeera.net they read it good.
thank you and have nice day .
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UI is still the same in IE8? Sorry Microsoft but you fail. Time to let Apple buy you out for $20 bucks and save the internet and computers as we know it.
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Huh? What does this have to do with Apple? Last I check the safari or whatever that browser call has like 3% or so market shares.
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I thought Microsoft was bad for long Beta periods, but Safari 3 for Windows takes the biscuit.
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What a sad little misguided troll you've become.
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Not going to happen. And yea, I was disappointed with the GUI too.
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Agreed. Infact, I'd rather use IE x than Safari!
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It's slow at the moment and has an inactive horizontal scrollbar at almost all times (unless specifically told not to in CSS as far as I can tell).
It's rendering of CSS is very, very slow, but however, these are the bad points.
The good points:
It passes Acid2.
It has some interesting new features.
It hasn't broken as many sites as I thought it would, and hasn't broken those that have too badly.
It makes my life as a web designer that little bit easier.
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Paul, you're not one of those Flash fanatics with all the annoying animation are you? I designed my own sites with flash a long time ago, then went back to a very classy look with plain old HTML.
Simple is better in my opinion.
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Couldn't agree more.
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HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA.
"I don't know what it is with Microsoft but it seems that they have to make a new version of something every year"
Vista: 4 years after XP
IE7: 5 years after IE6
XP SP3: still not arrived after 4 years of waiting
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From what i read on the net, IE7 is the biggest disaster of a browser ever conceived, even though its not at all.
Same goes for Vista. People speak about it like it raped their wife and kids, yet it sells well, is used by millions, and a lot of those millions seem to enjoy it.
Microsoft has to please the people who enjoy their products, as well as the people who will never enjoy their products, hence the constant updates.
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IE6 is, because it was an insecure nightmare, and led to the half-assed creation of IE7.
IE7 from the newb net user in an essential sandbox is fine. For the developer it sucks Donkey Testicles.
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IE6 is not an insecure product, it was very secure in it's age. I never have any problem with it. The people who has problems with it are idiots and moron any way. Even if you give them the most secure product, they will find ways to invite intruders. I am now a firefox user, not like IE7 give me any problem, I like FF because I am able to customize it the way I want it.
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"IE6 is not an insecure product, it was very secure in it's age."
In 2006, IE6 was very insecure, making it to the top of SANS list of top 20 Internet Security Attack Targets:
"In many cases, the vulnerabilities were zero-days i.e. no patch was available at the time the vulnerabilities were publicly disclosed. The VML zero-day vulnerability fixed by Microsoft patch MS06-055 was widely exploited by malicious websites before the patch was available."
http://www.sans.org/top2...e333b6d993402f982260#w1
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Guess you can't read?
I said it's secure at it's age/time. It was released in August 2001. Prior that that, every version of IE was release within 1 or 2 years, until version 6 where they corner the browser market. Then IE7 came in October 2006.
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"..is used by millions, and a lot of those millions seem to enjoy it."
These millions you speak of are the people that went out and bought new pcs with Vista pre-installed. The people that bring their computers to the pc repair shop I work at hate it.
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"IE6 is not an insecure product, it was very secure in it's age."
As you mention, IE7 didn't come out till October 2006, by which time, IE6 had exposed even fully-patched users to in-the-wild exploits.
Therefore IE6 was.not.secure.
There was no other MS browser available in most of 2006, so IE6 was *not* secure in its age.
and you may want to brush up on your writing before you insult my reading skills, thanks.
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"The people that bring their computers to the pc repair shop I work at hate it"
People that bring their computers to the pc repair shop are mad because their computer is broke. People that do not come to the pc repair shop are happy, you just don't see them.
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no worky for my vista home prem sp1 beta says this installation doest not support your current service pack version :-(
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Uninstall the SP1 beta and install the final version (or wait until the final version comes out). When using Service Pack betas for MS OSs you can be sure you'll get no support, from software addons or customer service.
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wasn't the newest version of sp1 the one that caused alot of problems with apps not working? for some reason i never got the notice of the new version from microsoft and at this point might as well wait for the final never noticed any difference with sp1 anyway
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i dumped sp1 and installed ie8 everything seems to work fine except my msn home page is hosed... kind of the last page i expected problems with
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Doesn't pass Acid2 for me, but is closer than the current* Firefox release.
*I know Firefox 3 does, don't lynch me.
*Edit* It does now. That was odd.
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Actually my Vista-using friend tried it and said it DID NOT pass Acid2... which is odd because the IE8 team have been boasting that for months now...
[EDIT: My friend might have used the link http://acid2.acidtests.org/ which is a BROKEN ACID2 TEST. The working one, which IE8 supposedly passes fine, is http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/ ]
[Edit: The former one is working now in FF3b3 so I assume it's been fixed.]
My friend is a huge Microsoft fanboy and he couldn't stand the beta for 5 minutes before uninstalling it. He just called it "garbage". Wow.
I'm still compiling Singularity so I can't reboot yet to try it out myself. Looks ore like IE7.1 from the screenshots though.
On the bright side it actually manages not to completely mangle Acid3 like IE7 does, although it still scores a miserable 17 (IE7 scores a 12), and like IE7 it scores a 10 until you click allow in the information bar.
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It actually sounds pretty neat. I'm definately going to try it out on my home computer next chance I get.
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Installing...
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