AdventuresInVista
Hints, Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Windows Vista

IE8 - The Buglist
12 October 2008 in Internet Explorer 8 | Comments (3)

OK, as lovely as IE8 is.. it’s still in Beta. That always means there are bugs and things that maybe aren’t quite finished. Fair enough, it’s the risk we take.

However, I’ve decided to document the problems I find as I go along, just in case anyone else is thinking of switching to IE8b2 and wants to know if their favourite websites will work. I will update this page as I find new problems.

Note I’m still using IE8b2 for most of my browsing, despite these ‘issues’, and with some of the items below I haven’t tested compatibility mode.

The Browser Wars Are Back! (IE8 Beta 2 Released)
9 October 2008 in Browser Wars & Internet Explorer 8 | Comments (2)

The latest Beta of Microsoft’s new super-standards-friendly browser, Internet Explorer 8, has been released.

This latest version offers many enhancements and new features, including…

• Completely CSS 2.1 compliant
• New features including Accelerators and Web Slices
• Compatiblility mode (basically IE7 mode)
• InPrivate browsing - a new way to browse without leaving any traces. Your history, cookies, etc are not stored
• New Safety features including SmartScreen filter
• And much, much more

Of course, this is still only Beta 2. The final version is due to be released before Christmas, but this release seems very stable - in fact, this post is being written on IE8!

I can’t help feel though that we’re in for a new round of browser wars. Safari is getting better, we have Google Chrome (built on Safari), a new version of IE on the horizon, and of course Firefox. Let’s hope this time web developers aren’t caught in the middle!

Find out more and download at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/

UPDATE Click here for my regularly updated IE8 Beta 2 Buglist

Introducing Internet Explorer 8
9 March 2008 in Browser Wars & Internet Explorer 8 | Comments (2)

And yes… it’s standards compliant.

Microsoft used the recent MIX08 event to unleash Beta 1 of Internet Explorer 8. Aimed squarely at developers (although, as far as I can tell, anyone can download it), IE8 is ushering in a new era of compatibility and standards compliance for Microsoft. Here it is in action…

As you can see, it looks pretty similar to any other version of IE, although there are some important differences…