IE8 Beta Released To Public 605
Tim writes "English, German, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese versions of Internet Explorer 8 have been released for public beta. New features include accelerators, which provide instant context menu access for a number of common tasks; automatic crash recovery, which prevents a single page's failures from taking down your entire browser; and browser privacy, a feature that didn't make Firefox 3. I'm primarily a Firefox user, and I've been using IE8 at work (MS) for the past few weeks. It's a definite improvement over previous versions, and brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for. Give it a spin, submit feedback, and help keep all browser makers on their toes by facing each other's competition."
Shows what competion can do. (Score:5, Insightful)
Standards-complient or not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent feature... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Extensions are bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that like it is a bad thing. I prefer the use of extensions for my browser, instead of the bloatware that tends to happen. What if I don't care about privacy? I don't need that installed then. I like that I can choose the features I want, instead of having everything thrown in there.
Also, extensions have a great benefit with regards to updates. they can be updated at any time, and therefore don't have to wait on a new browser update for tweaking things and adding functionality. They also allow me to leave an extension that I don't want to update as is while still being able to update the browser (and possibly its security).
This is not to say that Firefox is not getting large, or that microsoft is not trying to assist people who don't have the savvy to look for extensions. I'm just saying extensions have a lot of benefits, and can be a very important tool.
Re:Press the button and protect your privacy .... (Score:5, Insightful)
indeed. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a definite improvement over previous versions, and brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for.
That may be true. But given the speed that developments and innovations get put into FF and the general convenience of the plugin system I think I'll stage with the Fox. If there is anything amazingly good and useful you can be sure we'll all have it very soon indeed.
Re:Microsoft Does Not Deserve Another Chance (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't have to go back if you don't want to, but there are many people still using IE, and it would be easier to write websites if every single bit of JS or CSS didn't have to have a workaround for it. If IE8 brings us one step closer to that dream, then I welcome it with open arms! Even if I'm not ever going to use it.
Re:What is really worrying is... (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe they are talking about the logs kept by the ISP rather than anything stored on the machine itself.
Its currently the same situation for users who delete their own history, its gone from the local machine, but that does not mean it was not logged elsewhere.
Re:Standards-complient or not? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to complain about this, let me ask you, do you ever use the word 'nice'? Check the entomology on it and revert to using in it's original form only please.
Re:Extensions are bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that extensions are bad, it's just more of a hassle if the functionality is not included as standard.
It's one reason I can't be bothered to try switching from Opera. Sure, I've downloaded Firefox, but I don't have to time to try to hunt down all the extensions to replicate Opera's standard functionality, and wonder if each extension is the one I want.
This is even more of an issue if you are trying to persuade a random non-geek user to switch from IE - you can't say "Go to this link", instead you have to say "Go here, then install it, then go here, here and here, and install all those things". For now, Firefox has done well because its standard features are still better than IE (and the extra standard features of Opera do not seem to be known by as many people). But you can't expect an average user to grapple with trying to hunt down extensions, just to replicate what'll be standard behaviour in IE.
As for bloatware, you need to compare real world filesizes. Last time I checked, Opera was still smaller than Firefox (even without any extensions), though I haven't checked the current sizes.
Re:Press the button and protect your privacy .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering a lot of people will just be wanting to browse at work or whatever and be able to easily find things in the history, I don't see why it should be on by default. Isn't 'browser privacy' basically just a way of hiding your pr0n-browsing history?
Re:Oh, I'd like a version (Score:5, Insightful)
Reboot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Crap... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh, I'd like a version (Score:5, Insightful)
You want MS to provide a linux version so that you can either state your intent to never install it, or so that you can sh*t on it? I'm sure they'll get right on that...
That's short sighted.
I would try IE8 if it ran on my platform of choice, which happens to be Kubuntu. If IE won't run on it, I won't try it. IE8 might be the best browser since Amaya, but if it won't run on my system, I won't try it.
Not all Linux users hate Microsoft or are FOSS zealots. Most of us just love Linux. We are open to trying MS products, and when MS creates a better product than Linux||Firefox then we will use it. I only wish that MS Office 2007 would run on Linux, I would pay for it and use it in a heartbeat. But I am not about to use MS's bloated, insecure operating system to get it.
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:0, Insightful)
Boo Hoo. Your browser is dead. Get over it.
Running multiple versions of IE (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if they would only give us some way of running multiple versions of IE side by side. There are still a lot of people using IE6, so I need to test sites against that. But I can't if I upgrade to IE7. And if I upgrade to IE8, I can't test against IE7 or IE6. We need a standalone version of IE6 for web developers to use for website testing. The time limited VM that they provide is a start, but I don't want to boot up an entire VM of Windows just to test one page.
Re:Standards-complient or not? (Score:3, Insightful)
So IE8 is less broken, less CPU/Memory hungry, and more "standards compliant" than IE7 .... but if it is still slow, power hungry, and breaks pages then it's not for me thank you ...
Re:Oh, I'd like a version (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The number of hindi speakers is probably 4 times that.
They don't release to the largest markets but the most useful ones for testing.
Besides , lets be honest - the spanish speaking world isn't exactly renowned for its cutting edge expanding IT industry.
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:5, Insightful)
How many Germans use a computer every day?
How many Mexicans, Columbians and Venezuelans use a computer every day?
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:1, Insightful)
Why not Arabic or some other right-to-left reading script. Surely that would stress corner cases in the rendering engine?
Just guessing, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
A large portion of Spanish speakers (e.g. Latin America) live in extreme poverty, so I doubt they'll all be downloading IE8 Beta anytime soon.
What should be compared is how many German speakers with internet access and their own PC vs. how many Spanish speakers with internet access and their own PC.
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:4, Insightful)
Have they closed down ActiveX? (Score:3, Insightful)
The only thing worth asking is this: is the plugin model still based on ActiveX and "security zones".
If so, IE is still not acceptable for use with any site that is not completely trusted.
Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't have to do anything to the desktop - they can just look at their proxy/firewall/router logs. Your choice of browser does nothing to stop corporate tracking/filtering.
Re:Oh, I'd like a version (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of us just love Linux.
Like hell. There's a very common saying, and it's pretty damn true: "BSD users use BSD because they love Unix. Linux users use Linux because they hate Windows."
Go look at Ubuntu Forums or Linux Questions or any of the other community sites; it's a huge whack of Microsoft hate (often leading them to convince themselves that what they're using is better than it actually is, but hey, that's part of the open-source gig these days).
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:3, Insightful)
German is actually the second most communicated language, right after English. This directly translates to the fact that German is the second most common language on the internet. Granted, most of it is probably porn, but never the less it means more German speaking people would use IE8 than most other language speakers. Why is this? Because Germany has by far one of the strongest economies in the world (3rd behind the US and Japan) and thus can afford greater internet access. Actually, funny thing is the top four economies in the world are the US, Japan, Germany, and China; native speakers of the same four language released.
Spanish, on the other hand, while spoken by many in the real world, isn't nearly as common in the information world.
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dear Mods: It's spelled "Funny" :) (Score:4, Insightful)
The point of Firefox, from the beginning, was to split this kind of functionality off into extensions, so that users can pick and choose what features they need, without being forced to accept bloat.
(Yes, ironically Firefox was an attempt to make a browser-only, bloat-free version of Mozilla. People sometimes talk, now, of doing the same to Firefox...)
Given that, I would call this:
brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for.
That's Firefox's strength, not a weakness.
Re:Crap... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't let XP upgrade to IE 7. I don't like the interface and it still 'feels' wrong. Probably because as someone pointed out above, it is even slower than IE 6 (which I liked okay).
Which makes you part of the problem -- part of the reason I, as a web developer, have to ensure our website works on IE6.
IE7 is a lot of things -- among them, it's more standards-compliant.
I get better functionality out of Firefox 3 with a couple of plugins.
So do I -- which is why, on XP, I do upgrade IE, and then barely use it outside of a Firefox IETab.
Re:Automatic crash recovery sounds interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, that's my one beef with FF.
I use FF for basic browsing (without many extensions) and I mostly think it's great. Rarely crashes, renders most sites fine, etc.
But I really, really don't like the apparently single-threadedness. Each tab should be its own thread, IMO, so that when one tab is busy with some random java applet, the others are still getting enough CPU slices to actually be usable.
Another time you get this behavior is when you open multiple tabs one right after the other. The tab you are viewing slows to a crawl while content is loaded in the other tabs.
I'm not saying this is better in Opera/IE/Safari/Lynx, but I'd really like to see this fixed.
Re:Browser privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Perfect for visiting internet cafes or libraries.
Only if you're not particularly paranoid. Let's look at this again:
It obliterates (erases AND overwrites) any and all signs of your activity when you exit.
That implies both that you actually exit, and that you're actually running an unmodified version of Opera Portable. It also assumes that the host filesystem is actually overwriting the same blocks... and a few other things.
It also implies that you haven't already been pwned by something as simple as a keylogger.
So, better than nothing, but you've got to figure that whatever you do on a public terminal is public knowledge. Any attempt to prevent that is playing an arms race that you will lose.
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe he is a 14-year old who hasn't the faintest clue what's going on, you insensitive clod.
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't attribute all the credits to Firefox alone. Apple has been pushing Safari a lot lately and Opera aren't just sitting around, Opera is improving a lot too.
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:2, Insightful)
I use Firefox, but I only know how to swear in Klingon.
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:1, Insightful)
Opera also wasn't free until they were making all their money on mobile device tie-ins. Somehow I think that was more of a deciding factor than browser competition, which had been provided in much greater volume by Microsoft before Firefox ever existed.
Re:Oh, I'd like a version (Score:3, Insightful)
You should be testing IE in the environment in which your site visitors will be running it - on Windows.
Testing Safari on Windows is very different to testing Safari on MacOSX - if your objective is to catch issues before the public would see them, you need to test browser Y on OS Z - not just browser Y on any old OS.
If Microsoft *did* release IE for Linux, that is ANOTHER browser/OS combination I would have to test for.
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shows what competion can do. (Score:3, Insightful)
People don't get Opera because there are free alternatives that don't have ads. Which would most people use: a free, ad-supported browser or the free and ad-free browser that came with their computer? People are stupid but they aren't that stupid.
Re:Running multiple versions of IE (Score:3, Insightful)
No, using IE8's compatibility mode means you are testing against IE8's compatibility mode. Sure, in theory it will behave identically to IE7, but testing is not a theoretical exercise, you need to know how IE7 actually behaves.