Internet Explorer 8 is now out..

Posted on Mar 19, 2009 in Microsoft, Test Drive Apps, Web Browsers by dee 1 Comment

image2 Internet Explorer 8 is now out.. Microsoft just released a new version of it’s web browser today. Packed with features and add-on’s, its trying hard to retain its user base. A lot of people prefer Firefox as their browser, but the fact remains that with the advent of technology such as Ajax etc, a lot of developers out there are trying to provide a richer user experience and sometimes, providing this level of interactivity results in issues when rendering the pages in any browser other than IE.

It will be interesting to see if this new version is smaller, faster and more secure than the previous versions. I thought I’d upgrade my work machine just to see how easy it is to upgrade and see if there are any major differences in browsing experiences.

I’m assuming at this point that most people out there are now on IE7, so this will be an upgrade.

Step 1

Started by navigating to the IE8 Homepage and clicking on the huge download link and saved the application to my PC. It was a 16meg download for me (it automatically detected my language set, so other language sets may differ slightly in size).

File downloaded and hit Run to start the install. It starts off with the obligatory "customer satisfaction survey" opt-in dialog:

Followed by the obligatory "License Agreement":

Step 2

Finally, we are ready to install.. ticked the Install Updates box and hit Next and waited for the magic :)

Now this is where it got a little misleading. The actual download doesn’t happen until at this point.. however, this went really quickly, so maybe it may be downloading a few more things to add to the application.

At this point, i had IE7 windows open to see if it will trap that and cater for it.

When installing, it installs the Core Components first, and then the updates and finally finishes. The total install time took around 5 minutes.

Restart the machine after installation is complete.

Once the machine was restarted, starting up IE, resulted in some more configuration dialog boxes. This includes the Phishing Filter if you had installed the Windows Live toolbar. It gives you options to set up "Express" or custom. These dictate the amount of add-on’s that will be installed and run on IE.

I decided to use "Express". Hit Finish and i was taken to their "Thank You" page.

Sooo, what are the major features? In addition to lots of add-ons, accelerators and speed, the major one that i must note is the little button on the right hand side of the Address URL bar:

This may be a button you’ll press often :) its for "Compatibility View" and allows sites designed with older browsers in mind to render better. We tried IE8 on some of our client sites without this mode, and the pages didn’t render well at all. Hitting this button made things lot better.

In terms of add-on’s, there is an entire site dedicated to all manner of add-ons. These allow you to personalize your IE experience and makes interacting with common sites and applications easier.

Its still early days in terms of reviewing its performance against Chrome or Firefox but initial dreads on it being bloated and slow may be wrong. I’m holding onto my opinions on this web browser for now.

Relevant links:

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Tags: IE8, Microsoft, Test Drive

About the Author

dee Dee can sometimes be lazy in updating his blog.. feel free to give him a kick about anything you want to see on here! :)

Comments (1)

Dee Mar 20 2009 - 2:48 am Reply

no advertising for sites here clmm8899 mate…

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