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First look at Internet Explorer 8 RC 1

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

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First look at Internet Explorer 8 RC 1Internet Explorer 8 is one of the new elements included in Windows 7. And while Microsoft keeps working on their next operating system, they’ve launched a first release candidate of their browser, so that we can have a sneak peek at all the new features it includes.

The first thing we notice is that Internet Explorer 8 RC1 hasn’t changed its interface that much comparing to previous beta versions. The address bar is again on top of the interface, and Favorites are accessible via a drop-down menu. However, there’s one big difference, especially if we remember the minimalist interface used in Internet Explorer 7: version 8 shows up to four different bars on its first launch (address bar, menu bar, Favorites bar, command bar) that cause an overall sense of clutter and take browsing space away.

First look at Internet Explorer 8 RC 1

Regarding new features, Internet Explorer 8 includes a bunch of them. The two most outstanding ones are Accelerators (previously known as Activities) and Web Slices. The first one gives you direct access to various online services just by right-clicking anywhere on the webpage or on highlighted text. For instance, you can look up a word, map an address, perform an online search and blog about or send by email something you just saw on the web straight away. The main drawback is that all these options are tied to Microsoft’s Windows Live services and there’s no option to switch them to other online tools.

First look at Internet Explorer 8 RC 1As for Web Slices, they work as a kind of RSS-style tool that allows you to track changes and updates on selected websites, without having to be constantly visiting them. It comes in really handy to track small changes that can’t be followed by RSS, like online auction bids, stock exchange values or weather information, to name a few. On the downside, the truth is I couldn’t really find any website where I could use Web Slices, except for the one provided as example on Internet Explorer’s website.

Besides these two major features, Internet Explorer 8 also includes a few other characteristics I found particularly interesting. One of them is InPrivate Browsing, which is more or less the Microsoft’s equivalent to Google’s Incognito browsing in Chrome. While InPrivate Browsing is on, the browser won’t save any data, including cookies, history and temporary internet files. No wonder they also call it Porn mode.

Web browsing has also been improved thanks to an enhanced address bar, similar to the Smart Location Bar you find in Firefox 3.  This address bar makes your browsing easier and more comfortable by suggesting URLs based on your own Favorites and your web browsing history.

First look at Internet Explorer 8 RC 1I also liked the Suggested sites function, which recommends new websites you may not know about. All you have to do is click on the Suggested sites button on the toolbar and Internet Explorer will display a list of similar websites based on the one you’re currently visiting and also your own browsing history – something I bet privacy paranoiacs won’t probably be happy about. This tool however still needs some tweaking, as the suggested sites were sometimes a little incongruous.

Security is also an important matter for Internet Explorer. This new version includes the so-called SmartScreen filter, which prevents you from entering fraudulent websites and protects you from malicious software online phishing scams. The SmartScreen filter monitors your browsing in real time and automatically blocks any website that tries to perform any kind of illegal action. You can also check websites manually and report any suspicious websites to Microsoft.

I couldn’t finish this post without mentioning the fact that Internet Explorer 8 RC1 is fully standard-compliant, as proved by the perfect results scored in the Acid2 Test (a standard basic test to measure web browsers’ compatibility). Even the small problems with AJAX-based webpages we reported in the Beta version seem to have been solved now.

Generally speaking it seems that Internet Explorer 8 is very much finished and almost ready to launch its first final version. And if want my personal opinion, I have to say I liked it a lot. Firefox is still my favorite web browser, but that doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge Microsoft’s effort to produce a compatible, stable and much more customizable web browser. Competition for Mozilla just got harder.

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

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