RSSNew Internet Explorer 8 secures, slices, smokes
By Angela Gunn | Published March 19, 2009, 12:01 AM
As suspected, Microsoft used this week's MIX09 conference to unleash Internet Explorer 8, downloadable as of noon today (EDT). Our initial tests on the final release indicate that Microsoft's promises of better performance and security are realized, and that the team goal of creating "a better way to waste time on the Internet" has been realized too -- in the good sense.
But serious matters first, and both speed and security are seriously better in IE8. Betanews has executed its own speed tests during the beta period, and our tests indicated that it was at least twice as fast as the previous version; Microsoft's own tests on the RTW (release-to-web) version claim it to be between two and four times as fast.
Security's looking good. IE senior director Amy Barzdukas told Betanews that the development team had three goals for the 8.0 version -- protecting people from sites that attempt to phish their information or infest their machines with malware, protecting users from themselves (that is, from the tendency to ignore confusing warnings or to use less than good sense when clicking a savory link), and extending security "beyond the browser" to compromised servers.
The most significant effort involves expanding IE's detection efforts past its current ability to identify phishing sites. The browser can now also flag suspected or known malware sites, or sites attempting to infect visitors with malware. The need for SmartScreen is great; during development, Barzdukas says, Microsoft found that infectious sites outnumbered phishing sites by a charming 10:1.
In our tests, the detection was effective, correctly jumping on sites we knew to be infected with various bits of feral code. The warning we received, designed to support that second goal of protecting users from themselves, was perhaps even more effective than a harried tester would have liked -- if the browser sees that you're headed for a site already known to be problematic, it throws up a bright-red page warning you to turn back to your home page or inviting you to get more information. What you can't do is easily go anywhere else; there's no "OK" button to click. That design choice may have been a bit unnerving for a reviewer, but I'm personally planning to install the browser on my mother's machine for that feature alone. I also liked the simple visual indicator in the address bar that bolds the actual domain to which the URL points; a feature designed to give a visual cue that, say, "yourbank.com.evildudes.com" might not be the safest URL for checking your account balance.
Security isn't just about keeping users away from the bad stuff, of course; you've got to get out of their way so they can smoothly reach the good stuff. In the case of cross-site scripting attacks, a page might contain a mix of legitimate and malicious code. For those pages, IE8 is designed to detect and block the malicious code while allowing users to access the legit material. Betanews were unable to test this feature in the amount of time available to us.
The browser's also working on that third goal -- security "beyond the browser" -- while all this is happening. If an infection is detected, the browser passes the information back to Microsoft, which in turn can notify infected sites that they have a problem. We've seen this before over at Google, but considering the market share IE holds, this could be a big help in the fight to keep legit sites free of stealth infections.
Finally from the security front, the InPrivate functionality we saw during the beta process seems to have been refined. as before, it must be accessed from the menu, but once you're in it the mode operates in both browser modes (no persistence of session, no cookies) and in a filtering mode that examines what information might be gathered by third parties such as advertising networks that might have their code in some part of the page viewed. users can choose to block the sending of that information, or can choose which providers may receive it.
Much security thought has been given to how to keep malevolent code from wreaking havoc on the system at large, and a great deal of thinking both inside and outside Microsoft has focused on keeping processes separate -- sandboxing, as some call it. IE8 improves tab isolation and recovery capabilities; when one of the buggiest pages we tested with ran amok, it only knocked out its own tab rather than sinking the entire browser or the OS at large. Further experimentation is needed, but we liked what we saw there.
Next: The more visible tweaks in IE8, including Slices and Accelerators...
The windows xp version on here was nothing but trouble and all the problems people had with it I had. Downloaded the version on the IE8 site for XP and worked just fine - considered the file forum one a previous version of IE. May help some of you.
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|Win Vista 32 here different computer - no problems a welcome surprise. works great. problems commented on are evidently machine based. as usual. Off to try XP version on yet a third.
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|Win Vista 64 here - no problems a welcome surprise. works great. problems commented on are evidently machine based. as usual.
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|I run Vista. I was using the betas and pre-releases with minor issues but the "final" release caused a myriad of problems. I finally usinstalled IE8 and let it automatically revert to IE7 .. now everything works again. They have got some work to do with this product. Under IE8 whenever I changed webpages an error message popped up that there was an error and IE8 was closing .. but only the page I just left closed and I could NOT go back to it. Irritating behavior. I removed all addins and embellishments but the behavior persisted so .. I removed IE8.
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|did you reformat? or revert back to an image before installing any beta software, etc etc, if not... its no wonder you encountered issues, you can't test software like that expect a final product to work fine and dandy after screwing around so much with your OS, its common sense
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|cool.. thanks for the IE update.. isn't there real news?
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|it is news and interesting for some of us, don't have anything constructive to say, don't bother commenting
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|"secures, slices, smokes" LOL
Secures - secures 256 MB of ram for itself.
Slices - slices the the process (iexplorer.exe) in two, literally.
Smokes - Smokes your system resources like cheech and chong.
IE releases are like Windows releases, who cares, we've all moved on, and the ones who haven't are still asleep, you think you're waking them up now?
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|256 MB of ram? Are you sure you aren't thinking of Firefox? Don't get me wrong, I like and use Firefox, but it's anything but light on its feet.
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|Forget IE8 and forget Firefox too. Google Chrome and Safari are the two top browsers out there. Of course, they have their share of resource usage too but are still better than the other two. The new buzz is speed and performance. Security is not a selling point anymore and that is why IE8 is not going to be a top pick no more.
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|"Security is not a selling point anymore and that is why IE8 is not going to be a top pick no more."
That is the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life...please, please tell me you don't work in IT.
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|I've been running Windows 7 Beta for 35 or so days now with no problems. It includes a beta version of IE8 and it runs great. I've had no problems with it.
However, downloading the final released version of IE8 from Microsoft and installing it at home on a Windows XP Pro box produced problems. For whatever reason it launches iexplore.exe twice. I think IE7 may do this too but I cannot remember. Also it's noticeably slower than IE7 is. I ended up removing IE8 and reverting back to IE7 on my home PC. Firefox is my main browser anyway but the wife likes to use IE7 and didn't like IE8 after about 30 minutes of use.
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|Back in time, Internet Exploited 8 was created to play better with web standards... No we see it scores 20/100 in acid 3 tests. That is Microsoft efforts toward standards? Wait, it has another way to render, "compatible mode" it says, and it scores... 13!
Internet exploited can be a nightmare or even worse. You can choose! And there are some guys telling that standards do not care.... For me, these guys are the perfect example of blind fan boys... Pathetic!
MS is still forcing designers to rewrite their pages in order to avoid IE bugs and you say it is good... I say, it is pathetic.
Sites should start developing right and putting banners warning users about IE bugs, for users to "update" to firefox/safari/opera or any other engine.
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|Lovely product, somewhat. On all my machines it detected Release Candidate 2 and had to remove, reboot and install IE8 fresh. On my HP laptop it said Java was not detected, when in fact I have the latest release.. I figured out on my own that I needed to go under tools, internet options, reset defaults. After this was completed, Pogo and other java sites finally loaded properly. Anyone else not knowing what to do, may have panicked.
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|yeah I had to reinstall java to get it to work right in some cases. This is a bummer, as most everything works fine otherwise.
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|Installed and runs fine (Vista 32-bit) - I couldn't tell a big speed difference among Firefox, IE8 or Opera 9 & 10 just "browsing around". IE is just not my browser of choice.
Landover - downloaded IE8 and it killed his computer? wow!! call the cops!!
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|My husband downloaded IE8 and it killed his computer. Have they fixed it since they first put it out?
Landover Baptist Church
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|http://macdailynews.com/...p/weblog/comments/20526
Enough said. Have a great day.
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|I didnt realize that Acid3 was the only thing that determined if a browser is good or bad...because, ya know, there are soooooo many websites which use Acid3, I forgot about that (sarcasm).
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|I tend to wonder who develops this acid test. Posted from (http://macdailynews.com/...p/weblog/comments/20526) 'Safari 4 browser scores 100 on Acid 3.', 'Safari passed Acid 2 on October 27, 2005, two-and-a-half years before any other popular browser. Safari is the first — and only — web browser to pass Acid 3. Acid 3 tests a browser’s ability to fully render pages using the web standards used to build dynamic, next-generation websites, including CSS, JavaScript, XML, and SVG.'
Odd isnt it? Maybe apple just wants a level playing field to be judged on? They got a good start with making 'the industrys tests'.
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|Tokar: HEE! Acid's one test; there are many tests. I've consistently found Safari's performance to be unacceptable on my machines, and I intensely dislike the user experience. That said, if some folks want to use a single test as their metric for choosing a browser, that's their choice to make. I assume those people only come into comments on an article such as to be flamed, but as the punchline to that NSFW joke goes, those folks are "not really here for the hunting."
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|I use Flock for my main browser because I do go to some social networks.
I use Opera 10 Alpha to read articles and view pix. Not really to buy stuff. Because I can't use Roboform with Opera. IE... still ugly, memory hog. And no really good mouse gesture plugins for it so it's down here with Google Chrome in use.
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|I was happy with Beta2 of IE8, even more happy with RC1. Now with the final release, I have lost the urge to mess with that fugly looking thing called Firefox. Although I do like Opera because of its underdog status. But I'll be sticking with IE8.
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|Gee, that's just great, it destroys simple web pages faster and with greater security than IE7. A 12 on the Acid 3 test? Yeah, sure, a test suite isn't everything. But really, a 12?
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|Mine gives 20, not that it makes much of a difference but just sayin' :D
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|There's such a ruckus over the release of Internet Explorer 8. I don't care- I'm not gonna care.
I've been burned so many times by Internet Explorer it's not even countable, and I'm not including the PC's I've had to fix for family and friends over a browser that's so wrapped up with the Operating System. Microsoft is losing market share so they decide to work on their browser- big deal.. just in time...to be last.
So they released a new version... Firefox is still better and more stable than Internet Explorer. Every version of Internet Explorer vs Firefox I've ever tested uses 20-30 mb less just on initial start up.
How many times do you need to be kicked in the head [being nice] before this relationship isn't working?!
And as mentioned in previous post, why do you OR should you have to reboot to load a browser... that's a warning right there.
Just give me the option to completely rip out anything having to do with Internet Explorer and replace it with a browser that doesn't require a 'compatibility mode' and I'll immediately feel 10x better.
Here's an idea.. hey Microsoft...There are web standards; write to them, use them and everything will be just fine... Don't make your own. Your pissin' off the people who actually create websites.
Finally, just from the rumor mill- I hope Internet Explorer 8 is the last browser from Microsoft that uses the Trident engine.
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|why write a book, if you didn't care.
perhaps, you do care and want someone to lend you a shoulder and a glass of warm milk.
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|Zing!!
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|My theory on people who take the time to write hundreds of words claiming they "don't care" is that in fact they do. I am, however, considering overthrowing that theory and simply offering those folks a glass of warm and snarky milk for the rest of my days. You all right with that plan?
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|Hell of a long way to say you don't care, bud.
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|Smoking is not cool... and it does not even work for a simple google website: gmail.com, it does not load properly... and you would think that Microsoft knows more about its Windows Operating System and create Internet Explorer in a way that it would make it way better than the competition... but shockingly, I find myself continuing to use Firefox and a little Google Chrome... Well wish me good luck in trying to uninstall IE8... because for someone reason it is not that simple, its not located under Programs and Features, I will recheck... peace
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|Can you set a minimum size for font display, with this new ie8 browser?
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|Downloaded and played around with it for a bit. It looks and feels good so far. Definately snappier than version 7.
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|Anyone who downloaded it: what's the verdict on Acid 3?
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|A massive 20.
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|Ouch!
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|Not only that, it takes almost 30 seconds to get to 20.
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|Not only that, but acid3 is meaningless with regards to real world browsing.
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|Not only that, web developers completely disagree with you.
- Standards across the web ease development.
- Ease of development means optimization of content is much easier.
- Web pages benefit and so does user experience.
Whether you use IE or not, you are directly impacted by every feature or lack thereof.
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|not only that, but so do informed consumers who've enjoyed the experience of using other browsers
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|Strange. So compatibility mode is turned on for intranet sites, yet it breaks several of my intranet .asp IIS7 sites...
Otherwise performance is indeed much better and I like the features, but I will still stick with FF3.5 beta.
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|well i just installed IE8 final, i have to say it feels much snappier, from load time to browsing ... maybe those tests MS had done recently were the truth, had zero issues with install, granted we shouldn't have to restart our systems to install a browser
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|Ya but Internet Explorer any version likes to freeze up when you get to certain sites randomly. No matter what version including this one. Sorry microcrap but I switched to Firefox and its alot more stable.
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|Using it now. Seems pretty good so far.
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|It's out.
http://www.microsoft.com...nfamily/ie/default.mspx
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|yep, just installed it.. about to reboot :/
edit: seems to be working ok, but I still love my firefox :D
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|no luck here just keeps taking me to a page thanking me for dl ie8 but not download click link click here if it doesn't dl automatically and same thing...
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|rebooting for a browser install. awesome.
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|This site shows you when it will be available in your timezone: http://www.timeanddate.c...=0&sec=0&p1=179
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|i usually keep alternate clocks on PDT and EDT in vista, its easier
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|Using RC1 now. Definately looking forward to the final release. I wonder if there will be a way to put it on the public Windows 7 Beta...
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|I'm sure it will be part fo the April release candidate. Don't see any reason why it wouldn't be...
Less than a month away. I can wait. (not that IE interests me int he slightest, but...meh)
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|Your keyboard is messed up Toolie, but I agree about the no interest in IE part.
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|Nah, I just can't type today.
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|great, now i get to support three versions of ie that each march to the beat of their own drummer. killjoy.
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|you could always throw up a page stating 'your browser is outdated, please upgrade to at least IE7/8, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera etc', nobody is stopping you, and it would inform your users they are using dated and in all cases, vulnerable software
not too long ago IE was pretty much the only game in town, pushing its own standards (at the time) it had what? 96% market share, and over the past few years IE7 and now 8, MS has adopted to the standards of the rest, its time for web developers to push its users to do the same, thats my thought
what if say YouTube, suddenly adopted a standard of only allowing access to users with IE version 7/8, Firefox 2.0.0.9?/3.0.7 etc, that wouldn't be seen as an attempt to hurt MS, it would be seen as practical, its on everyone to do their part, even at the ISP level
also in doing something like that, it levels the playing field in this 'browser war' the way its meant to be leveled and not with any EU regulation type sh*t
Score: 1
|You can't do that. Some companies won't allow IE7/8 on their computers. I know a ton of companies using IE6. As a web developer, I have to support these outdated browsers because these companies are customers of ours. Actually supporting IE8 is really easy. Just make your pages standards compliant. Then you can hack it for the other browsers. IE8 is the most standards compliant browser out there. You can also add the meta tag to inform IE8 to use IE7 mode so you don't have to support it yet.
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|you can do it, you just rather play possum than explain to your customers why its important, thats not a reason, thats a cop out
why would a company NEED to use IE6? the same reason they need to use Windows 2000? lol
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|IE8 should be next to no problem CSS wise. None of my sites needed alterations (except changing the IF GTE IE7 to IF IE7 conditional comment).
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|I work at a department of defence company I will not mention which but there apps NEED IE6 for some dumb reason. Guess its all coded to work with the cac card. Its a pain cuase now they are 3 versions behind. Drives me crazy cause im all about the latest and greatest.
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|@artfuldodga Facebook already have a "You're using IE6; stop it!" page.
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|well, as long as there isn't a 'continue anyway' button on that page, then facebook is doing it right, if users on IE6 can continue regardless, not so much...
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|"why would a company NEED to use IE6?"
Because they have 200,000 PCs installed around the world and consider other problems more important?
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|waiting so long
it must be great
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|looking forward to IE8, may use it over Chrome as an alternative browser :D
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|English isn't my native idiom.
I was very (good)surprised with a woman comment, finaaly, on this forum, but (still welcome)discovered is someone from BN. I'm a BN reader since it started and it's the very first time I saw a woman posting something. OK, at least, was a begin. :)
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|I'm delighted by your use of the phrase "native idiom". That's more eloquent English than most of the people here.
That, and it reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
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|Visions of the knight running towards Swamp Castle (while getting farther and farther away) ran through my mind when I read that as well.
Still the best movie....ever.
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|Hello Deda -- oh, I agree that we'd be better off with more women participating on the site! Thanks very much for commenting, and your English is in fact lovely. I look forward to seeing you around the site again.
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|"Still the best movie....ever."
What about Princess Bride?
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|...an incredibly close second.
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|deda, please don't make my English look bad :)
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|After months of comparing Chrome 1.x, 2.x, FF2.x, FF3.0, Safari 3.x, 4.x and IE8, the only "performance" difference I have found is that IE8 tends to launch slower than the others, but once opened it works the same (speed of accessing and rendering content). All the so-called benchmarking appears (to me anyway) to be entirely bogus as far as rendering content is concerned.
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|IE8 launch slower than others? i think you might have something misconfigured in your OS
edit: had the same issue, wasn't a problem with MS, it was lists of banned domains i had added previously using SpyBot S&D, fixed, now loads instantly :)
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|It's slow for me as well. After a reboot it takes up to a minute to load IE8 and subsequent startups take around 40 seconds with the (admittedly ancient) CPU running at 100%. It's the same when running without add-ons. I'm back on IE7 now and that takes around 10 seconds to load.
Edit: The lag is caused by the Immunize feature in Spybot (and similar programs) which adds thousands of entries to the Restricted Sites list in IE. After un-immunizing, the startup on my PC is only a couple of seconds.
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|i have fixed my delay, see comment above, your issue though... doesn't look the same as mine
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|Told you so, it'll just be Chrome and IE soon, the rest are doomed to be used by a minority clique who like to fiddle with stuff. Normal folk will just accept that it's good to browse, and that we really don't find it necessary to brag about how many tabs we have open, or how may bits of rubbish we have added to make the thing go faster. But this latest from Bill is going to have to be very fast to catch the excellent Chrome.
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|"But this latest from Bill is going to have to be very fast to catch the excellent Chrome."
It'll be ahead on market share within 24 hours of it being released.
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|"It'll be ahead on market share within 24 hours of it being released."
Of course it will, Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop OS market.
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|Chrome and IE?
Right now it's Firefox and IE...what's going to convert the extension addicted masses currently using Firefox to Chrome? (They most definitely would find that easier than moving back to IE, which most of them hate beyond reason)
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|"what's going to convert the extension addicted masses currently using Firefox to Chrome?" That would be Google PC, Google will do to Firefox, much as IE did to those other now forgotten browsers of yesteryear.
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|"Google PC"
What?
"forgotten browser"
Netscape? It was *one* browser.
Those folks who currently use Firefox download it to replace IE now. What's to stop them from doing the same when the imagined "Google PC" shows up?
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|Ah good.
Today is a good day for web designers everywhere.
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|I've effectively blocked Microsoft's access to my system using ESET's Smart Security. They keep sending me messages to try re-establish contact. The security level on my system, as measured by Firefox is at the highest level possible. It's almost like using Windows with no Windows. I won't be using IE 8 anytime soon.
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|Do you also have your aluminum foil hat to prevent being harmed by cosmic rays? Seriously dude, get a life.
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|A tinfoil hat doesn't work anyway.
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|I have a severe, chronic mental illness accompanied by brain damage. You should try being crazy sometime, it's kind of fun. Being irrational isn't illegal, immoral or threatening.
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|Good for you
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|"Being irrational isn't illegal, immoral or threatening."
Except for those of us who have to deal with the fallout from the people who were irrational enough to listen to and/or believe you. ;)
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|So now I'm a liar Toolie. Internet Explorer is non-functional on my system and it's going to stay that way. I can honestly say I have never had a virus, trojan or malware on my system. Can you honestly state that's true of your system. I've defended your integrity and you repay me by insinuating that I'm a liar.
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|*laughing*
Did you miss the ";)" (that means I'm kidding)
I insinuated nothing. I was giving you crap. You're the one who called yourself irrational, I was just playing along. Way to read way too much into it.
As for IE being non-functional on your system, unless it's *not* windows or it is pre-win95, I doubt that very much. You may not use it, but it's undoubtedly quite functional.
As for *my* system, I don't use IE. I hate it. Spectacularly. I much prefer gouging my eyes out. Of course, instead of doing either of the above, I use firefox. Much less painful...either way.
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|One of the downsides to my illness is uncontrolled rages. I apologize for the rant.
When you install Eset's Security System in Strict Mode it actually allows you to deactivate Internet Explorer. I can open IE, but it won't load pages and shows a connection error message.
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|@ Paul Skinner: An MIT study on the effectiveness of tinfoil hats? You, sir, just made my day. Bravo!
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|What a pleasant surprise!
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|"As suspected, Microsoft used this week's MIX09 conference to unleash Internet Explorer 8, downloadable as of noon (EDT)."
... From where? microsoft.com claims the latest version is RC1, and is still offering IE7 on the main IE site.
Nothing on Windows/Microsoft Update.
[Edit: Whoops, I realized that's twelve hours from now, not twelve hours ago. OK.]
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|I looked all over the place for it too. :P
"[Edit: Whoops, I realized that's twelve hours from now, not twelve hours ago. OK.]"
I suppose that explains why this was posted 1 minute after midnight.
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|Hi all -- yeah, noon on Thursday. Sorry for the confusion. I'll link that up when it's good to go. In the meantime, the embargo on the news itself broke at, yes, 12:01am EDT, hence the timestamp. (But being a real dork about the security angle, I'm still playing with the software over here, so I reserve the right to update the article a bit in anticipation of noon. Having a seriously good time as if you can't tell.)
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|I use Vista Ultimate x64 which comes with both x32 and x64 versions of IE7. Will I need to manually download both the x32 and x64 bit versions of IE8 or is there an ETA on when it will show up on Windows Update
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|