Microsoft Announces Availability of Internet Explorer 8

After several months of public testing, IE8 is released its final version yesterday.It is available for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server and in 25 languages, with additional languages to come.IE8 is notably better because of the anti-malware that's built in to IE8's beefed up Smartscreen, which is a filter that blocks imposter sites that may download malicious software.

In a release, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said: "Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser — safety, speed and greater ease of use. 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.”

The user interface in IE8 has been overhauled, it has new features such as color-coded browser tabs to group recently opened tabs together, the ability to recommend sites, a new visual search feature that allows users to see pictures of things such as eBay and  Amazon results, auto-completion of searches and URLs, and a toolbar like Mozilla Firefox's for searching within a page. New tabs also show commonly visited Web sites as links, and tabs work in isolation so that if one tab crashes, the entire browser does not.

What’s New:-

.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.

IE8 may be worth a try for those who have not already sampled the beta or RC1 versions. Let's hope Microsoft's servers can stand up to the demand this time.

Category: Internet Explorer, Microsoft