Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Today, Internet Explorer 8.0 was released to the public.

Weighing in at 13.2MB, this download is available for Windows XP as well as Windows Vista, but not for Windows 7 Beta.  (The Win7 Beta’s RTM release is coming with Release Candidate 1… it’s just taking longer because of some of core dependencies the browser has on the underlying OS.)

We’re obviously very excited about today’s launch of Internet Explorer 8; it’s safer, easier, faster, and more secure than any other browser on the market!   IE8 is the modern browser, providing superior features, toolkits and robust security for IT pros to configure, deploy, and manage the browser as part of their corporate environment.

• Safer.  Built-in phishing and malware protection along with click-jacking and cross-site scripting prevention protects from threats on the Internet. InPrivate browsing & filters let you maintain confidentiality when needed.  See Whitepaper here.
• Easier. With Web Slices, content updates from your favorite website are now accessible right from your favorites bar no matter where you are on the web.  We already have 41 Web Slices developed in the US.
• Faster. IE8 is faster than IE7 by 80% in common micro-benchmarks.  In side-by-side measures of speed in opening the top 25 websites worldwide, IE8 was as fast or faster than Firefox and Chrome.  See the video here.

Here are the 6 reasons to load up IE8.0:

1. PERFORMANCE – Surf using the fastest browser on the Internet.
2. STANDARDS-BASED – Leverage industry standards to ensure uniform browsing experience. 
   & COMPATIBILITY-MODE  – Ensure that you can always view legacy web pages that are not industry standards based.
3. SMARTSCREEN – Identify and make apparent fake web sites and illicit links.
4. IN-PRIVATE – Surf without fear of content being tracked or traces left behind on the computer you’re working on.  Surf with complete privacy.
5. WEBSLICES – Ensure that common information of value is always available with the simple hover over a button.  Keep in touch with changes to internet content that may me something to you.
6. ACCELERATORS – Act on content that you highlight by selecting text and immediately processing that text using a web service such as a mapping service or a auction site.

For videos on these features:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/videos.aspx

How to ensure your web site is compatible with IE8.0:

• “How Do I Fix My Site Today?”
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc817570.aspx
• IE Compatibility Center:
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/cc405106.aspx

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/ie8