Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 8 Beta

Ruu_Old

Sorry if posted already. Link to article. Link to beta download. Let the browser war continue.

Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled the beta version of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) for developers at the annual MIX08 conference in Las Vegas.

The beta version of IE8 includes better predictability when designing sites, full support for cascading style sheet (CSS) 2.1 at release to manufacturing, and integrated developer tools to quickly debug HTML, CSS and scripts in a visual environment, Microsoft said.

"A lot of the end user or consumer features are not featured on this build because it really is targeted at the developers and the designers," Matthew Lepsen from the Microsoft IE development team, said on a video produced by Microsoft's Channel 9 site.

While the consumer version of IE8 will differ somewhat from this first beta, it will not be a dramatic change, Lepsen said.

"There are not going to be huge landmark changes," Lepsen said. "We want to have continuity with the new functionality, so we don't want to shock our viewers with a whole bunch of changes."

The software giant again stressed the browser's interoperability. Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it will make IE8 standards compliant.
The browser will render the Acid2 browser test correctly, and fully supports CSS 2.1, Microsoft said. In addition, it fixes "many cross-browser inconsistencies such as get/set/removeAttribute, default attributes, Attribute object and the < Q > tag."

In an apparent coincidence, the Web Standards Group announced the release of the next-generation Acid3 test on Wednesday....

Sherifu

Think i'll pass on the beta. You tried it Ruu? Any good?

kaimera

May wait until I get home to try it.

/me shakes fist at win2k in work

Troublesome

Firefox still pwns.

Sherifu

.

Ruu_Old

Have it downloaded but not a chance to install and try it out. Maybe this evening.

allen175

i installed it last night.

its nice, but as with all beta programs it is very buggy to say the least. one of the bugs is that the webpage you are viewing will jump back to the top after scrolling down before the page loads fully and while browsing the tools menu it tends to be very slow and freeze up!

Cool new feature is the IE7 emulate button (i hope the name explains it all)

irishpartyboy

A "firefox emulate" button would be better

Have Mickysoft built in the idea of Master Passwords on IE yet? I couldn't live without it on Firefox.

IPB.

-annex-

Internet Explorer 8 wasn't asked for, nor needed. I won't be installing this one. Unless Microsoft forcefully install it; which of course they eventually will.
I wouldn't go as far as to call this IE8.
IE7.1 perhaps.

irishpartyboy

I've read XP SP3 (release candidates) doesn't include IE7 thankfully.

kaimera

Using it in IE7 Emu mode on boards cos it didn't like the top nav bar

No probs with it freezing or anything. IE7 with a lick of paint, no real bad thing. Might use the activities at some stage but meh.

The Real B-man

irishpartyboy wrote: »

I've read XP SP3 (release candidates) doesn't include IE7 thankfully.

It doesnt i have sp3 Beta

kaizersoze

I tried to install it on a Vista Ultimate machine with the last RC of SP1 installed.
Got this error:

The installation does not support your operating systems current service pack version

Troublesome

kaimera wrote: »

Using it in IE7 Emu mode on boards cos it didn't like the top nav bar

No probs with it freezing or anything. IE7 with a lick of paint, no real bad thing. Might use the activities at some stage but meh.

To fix this simply access the developer tools via Tools > Developer Tools and select strict (Internet Explorer 7) under View

Does it look any different from v7?

astrofool

Even if you don't use it, I'd still upgrade IE6 to IE7, many other programs, and even windows, use the IE rendering engine, and IE7 is much more secure by default. You're just asking for trouble keeping IE6.

Sherifu

Decided to give it a spin today. Only using it a few minutes. Was b0rked on boards so I used the IE7 emulation. Not a lot different but one thing i'm liking are these activities, select a word(s) and it pops up a little drop down menu so you can google/blog/translate. This is one very handy feature.

SirLemonhead

I actually hate the changes to the UI. I thought original bog standard IE7 ui was fine to use. It just looks messy now. I use the file/edit/view options about once every blue moon so I never needed those on. I don't like the changes to the favourites buttons either, and the fact that it's NOT on the tab row anymore

I'm guessing or hoping they might rejig the ui later, as it is all about the page rendering at the moment.