As Microsoft Goes, competing in the Browser Industry has been a battle. After all of the exploits and holes that have been discovered and exploited over the years, many users have switched to alternative browsers such as FireFox. To combat this trend, MS released IE (Internet Explorer) 7 – Which enhanced security and added many features that Microsoft’s browsers had lacked in comparison with others such as tabbed browsing. Now they have improved upon IE 7 and released IE 8. I recently installed the new browser and took a short tour of the new features, below are my thoughts.

Accelerators: These allow you to complete tasks (Such as Spell Checks, Mapping, Translations etc). There are endless numbers of accelerators that you can add to IE 8 – Social Networking, Search, Translations, Maps and On and On. You can find the gallery of Accelerators here: http://ieaddons.com/en/. Some seem very useful, others not so much - Most of which are entertaining and will contribute to your Internet time wasting by adding direct interaction with sites like Face Book and others.

Enhanced Navigation Features: IE 8 has added a few new features to navigation. One that I find to be pretty cool as a techie is the Compatibility View feature. Since IE8 is a new release, some sites may not display properly within the browser. That is where Compatibility View comes in. You can find this feature next to the “refresh” button on the address bar. This is similar to the “User Agent String Utility” accept now these features are built right into the browser – No need to install a second application.

Speaking of the Address bar, there are a few enhancements here as well. For example, if you cannot remember a site that you visited a few days/weeks/months (depending on your history settings and browsing habits) IE 8 Will search across all aspects of your history and suggest sites. This is especially useful when doing research online.

Tab Grouping is also a helpful feature. When you click a link that opens another tab, the 2 related tabs (having the link in common) are color coded to each other. They are also opened next to each other as opposed to at the end of the tabs as with IE 7.

Increased Performance: Now IE starts quicker and loads pages faster. I am somewhat skeptical of this as I think it also depends on how many add-ons and plug-ins and other features that you have installed/enabled. I guess results will vary from user to user. I can say that it definitely loads faster for me but I have very few add-ins enabled and virtually no plug-ins installed.

InPrivate Browsing: Browse the web without saving history Cookies etc. This is useful when using a public computer or a friends PC. No form or password data (or any other data) is maintained on the computer after it is entered into the sites that you visit. This is also useful for the paranoid and those trying to “Cover their Tracks”.

Web Slices: Keep track of changes to your favorite sites. This is basically like a favorites system. For example, if you wanted to keep track of what is going on on MSNBC, you would see a green “Web Slice” icon in the upper right corner of the browser. By clicking the Web Slice icon, you add this site to the web slice favorites bar so that you can keep up with that “Slice” of the web.

Smart Screen Filter: Websites that have been deemed unsafe can be screened using this feature. You can also submit a site to the list of questionable sites. This does not seem very useful to me personally but may be useful for parents etc. You can enable this feature by clicking on the “Safety” drop down on the Right side of the browser window and choosing “InPrivate Filtering”.

All in All, my experience with Internet Explorer 8 so far Has been a good one. I will have to use it for a few more days before I am sure that I like it though and I will definitely have to thoroughly test it before deploying it to any of my clients. As with any new browser, it will take some time to learn all of the new features and test as many sites as possible for compatibility and functionality. I will also be testing the Web Slice features as I have always HATED the favorites system.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com