Microsoft Announces Availability of Internet Explorer 8

[btarunr]

Today Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of Windows Internet Explorer 8, the new Web browser that offers the best solution for how people use the Web today. It can be downloaded in 25 languages at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8 starting at noon EDT on March 19. Internet Explorer 8 is easier to use, faster and offers leading-edge security features in direct response to people's increasing concerns about online safety. A new study commissioned by Microsoft and the National Cyber Security Alliance and conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. shows that 91 percent of adults in the U.S. are concerned about online threats in the current economic climate, and 78 percent are more likely to choose a Web browser with built-in security than they were two years ago.

"Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser -- safety, speed and greater ease of use," said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. "With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match."

In response to extensive customer research and input from tens of millions of customer sessions, Microsoft developed Internet Explorer 8 to focus on what matters most to people. The security enhancements offer protection against existing and emerging security threats online. It blocks two to four times more malware attacks than other browsers; cuts down on the time it takes to complete common tasks on the Web such as searching, mapping and sharing, including navigating 15 of the 20 top worldwide sites; and blurs the lines between the services they use daily and the browser used to access the Internet.

Helps Protect People From Online Threats

The new study released today reinforces the importance of safety in browsing, indicating that 78 percent of people are more likely than they were two years ago to choose a browser that includes built-in protection against security threats without them having to go online to download additional programs or browser add-ons. It also showed that 91 percent of adults in the U.S. are concerned about online fraud and identity theft in today's economic climate, and 37 percent are less likely to shop online because they would have to give their personal information.

Internet Explorer 8 offers the best security protections among leading browsers: a study released today by NSS Labs indicates that Internet Explorer 8 blocks two to four times as many malicious sites as other browsers on the market today.

Makes Common Online Tasks Faster and Easier

In addition to offering improved security and privacy protections, Internet Explorer 8 is one of the fastest browsers on the market today, beating other top browsers in page load time on almost 50 percent of the 25 top comScore Inc. Web sites.* It also helps people save time while using the Web with easy-to-use new features, including the following:

• Accelerators. Accelerators make it faster and easier to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Users can simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, or share it.
• Web Slices. Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever someone goes on the Web.
• Visual search suggestions. The Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 enables rich, real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people's own Favorites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information that saves time.

"We are excited about Internet Explorer 8 for several reasons, including its ability to provide our customers with updates to eBay products using Web Slices so they can keep track of their buying activity while surfing the web," said Matt Ackley, vice president of Internet Marketing and Advertising at eBay.

"The new ESPN Web Slices on Internet Explorer 8 make it easy for sports fans to check on the latest news and sports videos in a new and exciting way," said Jason Guenther, vice president of technology and product development at ESPN Digital Media. "We have a heritage of leveraging technology to deliver the best sports content to fans, and this is another example of our dedication to that."

Available for Download

Internet Explorer 8 will be available for download at noon EDT in 25 languages, including Arabic, Chinese (Traditional, Simplified and Hong Kong), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. More information and a download of Internet Explorer 8 (as of noon EDT on March 19) can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8

[Paintface]

awfully quiet in here

im an avid Firefox user by choice, its fast, light, but still has alot good features + addons.

Chrome and new safari are not bad at all, but more specific for those who really want pure minimalistic web experience.

But since IE is used in most corporate envirements where you can not simply install your own prefered browser a faster/safer/more compatible IE is always good news for everyone.

[NeSeNVi]

It good to try, before any suggestion.

[Mega-Japan]

I'm someone who is definitely not biased when it comes to browser. They all have their ups and downs.
I use Firefox 3.0.7 as my default browser, but I can honestly say I've had hard times with it. Whenever I am downloading something, sometimes, the download manager would just freeze. I feel like I'm about to ditch it for Chrome. I like Opera too, but only if it were more loved, I would try it more often. Safari and Chrome are not my type to set as default and IE7 was a nightmare even without me having to open it...

I will play with this release of IE8 for a while, let's see if for once, Microsoft gets the browser done right.

[kakazza]

Originally Posted by Paintface

But since IE is used in most corporate envirements where you can not simply install your own prefered browser a faster/safer/more compatible IE is always good news for everyone.

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

[SpatialAnomaly]

How many times can you 'upgrade' a web browser before it becomes totally pointless?

I guess we're up to 8 times, and counting...

[mdm-adph]

Originally Posted by Paintface

But since IE is used in most corporate envirements where you can not simply install your own prefered browser a faster/safer/more compatible IE is always good news for everyone.

The problem is that a great number of those corporate environments are still on IE6, and will be for quite some time. Trust me.

IE6 has so many quirks and bugs that went unfixed for so long (this is part of the reason why the world started moving to alternative browsers like Firefox), that a great number of corporate intranet apps were, in effect, designed around these bugs, and not around web programming in general. When MS came out with IE7 and now IE8, these corporate apps are not being upgraded dimply because "everything works fine in IE6" (not to mention that upgrading these internal applications is hugely expensive, and no one's really offering up the money to do it right now).

[h3llb3nd4]

ie8 < FireFox

[DaveK]

Originally Posted by Mega-Japan

I use Firefox 3.0.7 as my default browser, but I can honestly say I've had hard times with it. Whenever I am downloading something, sometimes, the download manager would just freeze.

I get that problem sometimes, it's really annoying. I don't get it, I really like Firefox, but as it gets to later versions it kinda goes downhill. Like 2.0.14, that was really laggy for me so I went to the 3.0 beta

[FordGT90Concept]

Finally. IE7 sucks. Will it be going on Windows Update any time soon or not?

Wait a minute, is this RC1 or the official launch?

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

Wait a minute, is this RC1 or the official launch?

The official launch.

[EnergyFX]

Edited because apparently I don't know how to read articles in their entirety before I post.

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by btarunr

The official launch.

Good. It should be up in half an hour then.

[crtecha]

The company i work for wrote and entire internal web based inventory system in IE6. So I'm stuck upgrading to this crap.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by EnergyFX

IE8 Website claims it is RC1... but perhaps they just haven't updated the info on the DL page.

http://img.techpowerup.org/090319/Image2.jpg

The download hasn't gone online yet. Didn't you read the article? It says 12:00 PM EDT.

[EnergyFX]

Originally Posted by btarunr

The download hasn't gone online yet. Didn't you read the article? It says 12:00 PM EDT.

... oh



No, I didn't read the entire article. Sorry.

[mdm-adph]

Originally Posted by btarunr

The download hasn't gone online yet. Didn't you read the article? It says 12:00 PM EDT.

Stop discriminating against travelers from the future.

[kiriakost]

All the extras that some one loads on one Internet browser , cause high CPU and memory utilization .


Other than safety and look , as also Laptop owner , i have to think twice how this software will act on my "mid speed" portable device .

If it performs adequately well on 1.6GHz XP-home 1GB ram system , its good for every use.

I will do some waiting before even try it .... as the IE software is a hard to remove one , if you change your mind .

[AM4A1]

is this the link where you can download it?

[A Cheese Danish]

Originally Posted by AM4A1

is this the link where you can download it?

no, that is the release candidate. Not the actual official release.

[AM4A1]

Originally Posted by A Cheese Danish

no, that is the release candidate. Not the actual official release.

oh, thanks for clearing that up.

[Mega-Japan]

Originally Posted by kakazza

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

Not when your work/school computer completely blocks access to "My Computer".

I use a lot of portable applications as well, including Portable Google Chrome, Portable Google Earth and a customized Portable Open Office. Can't use any.

Specially school computers, their system can only become smarter. Is not like 5 years ago when we used to go to a proxy site just so we can get into MySpace or the sort, lol.

[h3llb3nd4]

what? not even to my comp?!? thats stupid!!

[FordGT90Concept]

It is up now:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/int...ide-sites.aspx


Not for Windows 7:

We're sorry, but you won't be able to download Internet Explorer 8 for Windows 7 Beta at this time

Edit: I can already tell it doesn't get hung up near as often as IE7 (which it did on practically every other page). It is a long overdue improvement.

[mdm-adph]

Originally Posted by h3llb3nd4

what? not even to my comp?!? thats stupid!!

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

Not for Windows 7:

Aye, Microsoft, one step forward and two steps back.

First it was not using something like Bitorrent to distribute the Windows 7 Beta (something even free linux distros get right), and now they're not even immediately releasing their new browser for what is (arguably) their most popular OS right now.