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Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 now available
Although a large population of users have already migrated away from Internet Explorer, Microsoft Windows' built-in browser still dominates at large, for better or for worse. Its latest iteration, IE7 is still a very decent browser although with more recent releases of Firefox, Opera and Safari, Microsoft has once again fell behind in terms of features, customization and perhaps most importantly, performance.
The software giant has been touting all year long the progress they have been making with Internet Explorer 8, however with their latest beta 1 release they demonstrated they were far from reaching the stability and usability point where you can actually use the browser as your primary navigation tool. Even worse, it tended to break many many sites.
The IE development team announced today on their blog the public release of IE8 Beta 2. The browser is available for 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, XP, Windows Server 2003, and Server 2008. There is a long list of improved and added features on the Beta 2 which you can see here. In short, the development team claims this version of the browser is now ready for public consumption as long as you can live with the occasional yet mandatory bug you will find on non-final code.
If you are anything like us and enjoy tinkering with new browsers just for the fun of it, go grab a look.
The software giant has been touting all year long the progress they have been making with Internet Explorer 8, however with their latest beta 1 release they demonstrated they were far from reaching the stability and usability point where you can actually use the browser as your primary navigation tool. Even worse, it tended to break many many sites.
The IE development team announced today on their blog the public release of IE8 Beta 2. The browser is available for 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, XP, Windows Server 2003, and Server 2008. There is a long list of improved and added features on the Beta 2 which you can see here. In short, the development team claims this version of the browser is now ready for public consumption as long as you can live with the occasional yet mandatory bug you will find on non-final code.
If you are anything like us and enjoy tinkering with new browsers just for the fun of it, go grab a look.
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User Comments (4)
Post a comment| Badfinger on August 28, 2008 9:06 AM | Way too late and too little, considering it's MS? Not even
trying it.
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| DarkCobra on August 28, 2008 12:00 PM | Well in my humble opinion it's never too late for anything
to improve. I'm running the Beta 2 now on one of my three
64bit Vista machines and so far so good. Yeah, a few hicups
here and there occassionally but it's Beta and to be
expected. Is it as feature laden as Mozilla? No.
However, it is a definite improvement over Explorer 7 and a
pretty nice browser folks. The most important thing to keep
in mind is that MS "finally" realizes their browser needed
improvement and they are indeed making very good progress in
that direction. So again, it's NEVER too late to improve
on anything.
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| Badfinger on August 28, 2008 10:32 PM | No DC, the important thing folks, there are 2 superior FREE
browsers out there, and IE is a joke, use only when site
demands it, and that's rare. 3 64 Vista machines DC!?!! Did you have to brag? IE's history of badness is too long and distinguished for me, no one could change my mind on this, I've been using/supporting Windows since 1992.
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| DarkCobra on August 29, 2008 4:34 AM | Badfinger . . . a couple of things. IE 8 is also FREE.
Secondly, no one (including me) said it was superior to
anything. In fact, I distinctly said it was NOT as feature
laden as Mozilla. Go back and read my post. Why the childish response about my supposedly "bragging" about having more than one computer? This is a Tech site Badfinger and in case you aren't aware some of us do have more than one computer. Does this bother you? In fact, many Vista machines now are coming out in 64 bit. Does this frighten you as well? If you don't need or want more than one computer then stay with one. See how easy that was! Yes, IE's past history is problematic. Mozilla wasn't the smoothest thing in the world in its first releases either, but it's now been improved and is fantastic. Can't MS even attempt to improve theirs as well without people shouting "It's too late to even try and improve!" (as you're doing). Sure it's not as good a Mozilla yet but they're at least finally acknowledging that it needs improving and they are moving in that direction. Lighten up! You mention that you have supported windows since 1992. Well, I too go all the way back to Windows 3.1. In fact, in the 70's I programmed IBM 360 mainframes (COBOL, Fortran, ALP & PL1 languages) as a progammer for Gulf & Western. So I didn't just drive up to this yesterday either. All my posting stated was that IE8 seems to be an improvement over IE7 and that MS was finally making some progress. You see, Badfinger things can improve contrary to what you seem to want to spew. Most adults can and will acknowledge that It is indeed never too late for anything to improve. However, I never said that IE8 was "better" than any other Browser. I merely said it was improving and it is . . . whether you like it or not or acknowledge it or not. It's far from perfect but no Browser is perfect. The viewpoints of others should be able to be expressed here without such personal flaming at those viewpoints. Accusing me of bragging merely because I own more than one computer is childish. Refusing to accept the viewpoints of some of us that IE8 is an improvement over IE7 reflects an intolerance on your part of differing thoughts. This is an adult forum where civil exchanges of views should be able to be expressed. But Badfinger the personal attacks contribute nothing of value. Sorry if your ego got bruised but you have to be less fragile than that when differing opinions are expressed.
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