IE improves with IE8…

All my life I have only used IE to browse web and have not even attempted to explore any other browser. Be it Netscape, Firefox , opera, safari or the latest chrome…but yes have used sometimes to test my web applications and believe me it’s a pain to get the applications working correctly on all the browsers…so unless you are developing something for the users of entire world don’t even try to test in all browsers.

Also I usually do not install the new version of IE as and when it is released, but this time I installed the day it was released, just out of my curiosity to get familiar with the innovative features of it.

After installing, the very first site I browsed was a content management system and to my surprise it was completely disfigured, I was thinking there was some issue with the site and started enquiring about it with my colleagues, and got to know that it’s happening only with my laptop. However could not figure out the reason and started working on other things. Only the next day when I saw the “Compatibility View” button on the new browser next to the address bar, got to know the reason of pages not displaying correctly. Yes, clicking on the “Compatibility View” button the IE8 renders the page in appropriately.  So the websites which are designed for the older version of the IE and that may not be displayed properly with this new version like misaligned text, images and text boxes. To avoid this and display the web page properly in the address bar there is a compatibility view icon which displays the web page automatically in the older version of the IE, and next time when you again access the webpage it automatically displays it in compatibility view. You can also add the web pages which you want to view in the older version by using the Tools menu Compatibility View Settings.

Yes, IE8 has not disappointed me; there are lots of useful features apart from Compatibility View like Accelerators, Web Slices, In Private Browsing, Search Suggestions, and Easier Browsing. 

One of new feature of IE8 which I found interesting is Accelerators, it can help reducing the response time and speed up the accessing time. When we are browsing any website and if you select any text on the page, the accelerator icon will be displayed by clicking on that icon it allows us to search that particular text in Google, blog that information, mail that information, translate that text in to any other language etc. Without leaving the page and no need to select and copy the text and open new tab and then search for that text. Another advantage of this accelerators is if we want to search any address in Google maps we can highlight that address and by selecting the accelerator Icon.  All these can be done without leaving the page which we are accessing.. We can also add new accelerator which ever we would like to use and manage Accelerator feature allows us to delete or to default any of the accelerators.

Internet Explorer 8 version allows us to access the WebPages easier and faster by using the new Web slices feature. It allows keeping track of the frequently visited websites, without leaving the web page which you are accessing. For example we can make the weather updates and news websites which we access very often can be made as web slices and add it to our page, which makes us to keep track of it easy and simple.

Another simple feature is highlighting the domain name on the address bar, which helps the eye catch if any phishing site being browsed.

For Developers one of the good features I observed is the “View Source”, now it shows the code in colors with line numbers and not in plain notepad text.

InPrivate Browsing in Internet Explorer 8 helps prevent your browsing history, temporary Internet files, form data, cookies, and usernames and passwords from being retained by the browser, leaving no evidence of your browsing or search history. When checking e-mail at an Internet café or shopping for a gift on a family PC, you don’t want to leave any trace of specific web browsing activity.

With all these additional features IE8 comes more security, increased performance, automatic crash recovery and simple browsing…so try it out today…

General Resources
WIKI - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser
Feature Overview – http://www.microsoft.com/ie8
Technology Overview - http://www.go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=111416
Engineering Blog - http://blogs.msdn.com/ie
Business FAQ - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=111415
Performance - http://www.microsoft.cominternet-explorer/beta/videos.aspx?vindex=14
TechNet Magazine Article - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.04.ie8.aspx
User Control & Privacy Feature Guide - http://www.microsoft.com/ie/privacy

Developer Resources
IE Compatibility Center – http://msdn.com/iecompat
How to Fix My Site – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc817570.aspx
IE Dev Center – http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie
How-Do-I? Videos – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/cc304683.aspx
META Tags – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc817574.aspx
Webcast – http://msevents.microsoft.com/ Webcast Event ID: 1032395857
Channel 9 Videos – http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/IE8/

IT Professional Resources
Tech Center – http://technet.microsoft.com/ie
Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/bb219517.aspx
Business Value of IE8 EV SSL Certificates – http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ev
IE 8 Desktop Security Guide – http://sharepoint/sites/IE/Teams/mktg/security/default.aspx