@GeorgiaBoot: Whoops, thanks, fixed. And just uploaded a bunch of screengrabs to the post.

Also--does anyone care about IE any more? Or am I sacrificing my PC for naught? :)

Gina Trapani

OMG Noooooooooooooooooooooo. Think of the children!

heavylee-again

In the first sentence it should be "Beta" not "eta". But good article...

I don't have the courage to download it yet! I will stick to Firefox.

GeorgiaBoot

My skeptical self (regarding IE 8) got its lesson when Firefox crashed as I tried opening this article in a new tab. Go figure!

Anyway many businesses still restrict people to IE8 and also many asp apps that heavily use xml need IE too.

So Gina, I think it's definitely relevant. Although I would bet the majority of folks in your readership use an alternate browser at home, chances are many of those same readers have to deal with it at work, either using it or supporting it.

apronk

My office is the same way, we are still stuck on IE6 due to system apps that are not compatible with anything else. Personally, as much as I am attached to my Firefox (and gmail at that rate) I am willing to try anything that may honestly be better. Although I have no love for Microsoft or IE, if they happened to come out with a better product, I would not out-right deny it because of it's origin. (even if it would pain me on some level)

Yesmanforhire

Some people still care about IE, but all 7 did was attempt to catch up with FF and it didn't do a good job at even that. It may have all been for naught.

mrosedal

@Gina Trapani: I used to be one of those people that would only use IE and would not convert to Firefox. When I upgraded to IE7 i hated it and gave Firefox a try. I don't think I will ever go back to using IE. I only use it for sites that require you to use IE (mostly Microsoft update stuff, and few other i have come across). Maybe IE8 will be better, but I hate having to use IE on friends computers who haven't been converted yet.

bbobjoe

Doesn't work with Vista SP1.

Archdukey

Is it better than the Firefox update?

holymogwai

@Gina Trapani: Yes unfortunately I'll still have to worry about IE because the majority of people still use some version of it. Developing e-commerce sites means catering to the majority too.

I've wasted alot of time getting things to work in IE...

matth1jd

That's it! Beta or not this means IE6 is now 2 generations old and I am giving up on supporting it! It also makes IE 5's "box model" a genuine "antique" which is good news for us designers. Hooray! If my clients clients are going to use IE (and my stats say 82% of them do) then at least let them use the latest.

By the way...anyone tried the acid test with this thing? Is it passing? I dare not install it, although I could dig out an old box.

zarathustra

@Gina Trapani:

Sacrificing your computer is a major tenet of geek religion. You will be rewarded in another life. Possibly with spyware.

=)

The How-To Geek

Sites that still use tables (unfortunately there's still a lot out there) all seem to have rendering issues in IE8.

x3sphere

Dammit, my office hasn't even gotten all of our web apps to be IE7 compliant yet. I can't wait until all of the executive staff on the top floor decide to install this one. =(

IridiumRE

I wonder if this will work with Multiple-IE?

MichaelTV

WTF? They haven't gotten the bugs out of IE 7, and they're already spitting out another version of IE? *gah*

No, I don't plan on testing, and will only upgrade if I'm forced to (meaning if it does it without me allowing it). Besides IE being notoriously unsafe, it's also bulky and RAM hoggy. I'm so not a fan.

tm2ts

@ffm: Duh, yeah. Thanks for pointing that out. Could cause confusion. Obviously my afternoon tea was completely ineffective.

apronk

what is IE?

j/k - it's only a necessary evil that I use for my work, since our work's app uses IE as the standard...

otherwise, it's all firefox for me.

qrius

As someone who does a lot of end-user support, I'm pretty pumped that they've changed the name of the "Phishing Filter".

Not that I'll be using IE myself, mind...

andy

I wish they would fix the UI. Why are the home, reload, back, forward and bookmark buttons all spread around the browser? Terrible design.

This makes the IE Tab FF extension that much more valuable. : )

ryetronics

@apronk: You mean "still restrict people to IE", IE8 isn't out yet, its in beta!

Nice thing about IE8 is that it is standards-compliant by default.

ffm

@Archdukey: Works fine with SP1 here.

x3sphere

only 10 FF extensions? weak! :)

low_dirt

I'm totally for this if they're going to follow the standards (even if it does mean another VM instance taking up room on my hard drive). I just wish now we could get people to upgrade (or use another browser) so we can stop supporting IE6.

ColinC

Is this like all the other ones (you can't have multiple IE versions on the same machine) or has M$ finally figured out that beta testers/developers need to be able to run each? I'm not going to get it unless it can coexist with my "normal" environment, which has never happened before. Any ideas on this?

bucksommerkamp

Any word on HTML 4.01 or 5 / XHTML 1.0 / CSS 2 compliance improvements?

tonywc

I'm hard-up to find out how this does with the acid test, too. Do I need to go change all my conditional comments to be IE <= 7 now instead of just "IE"?

TomFrost

@low_dirt: So what? I have five, and I won't be installing any more anytime soon. It slows down your Firefox installation. Believe me, Firefox used to take three minutes to load. Seriously.

Brad

@ryetronics: I couldn't agree more. I was a bit of a chicken and was wary of trying this "Firefox nonsense", but after IE7 screwed up the toolbars, I switched and haven't looked back. Ah, Firefox and (when necessary,) IE Tab, thank you for bringing joy back to my browsing experience!

engstewart

To all of the developers in the crowd who are concerned about IE8's rendering: go browse A List Apart ... one or two issues ago there was some discussion about IE8's ability to "freeze" the rendering of a page as IE7 would render it; effectively, IE8 contains more than one rendering engine.

There's considerable discussion about that particular feature if you look around the web.

Regarding IE8's relevance: I've said it before and I'll say it again:

I personally do not use IE, save for sanity-checking my code when developing web sites.

However, a lot of companies rely on Windows Server products, which allow for very controlled management of the web browser (read: IE) on client workstations. That's a tantalizing thing for management and savvy IT staff. Centralized management of software is key in that kind of environment.

To my knowledge, no such management interface exists for Firefox, Opera, Safari, or [insert your favorite off-brand browser here]. Mac OSX server admins: if you're aware of such a thing for Safari, I'm interested. As long as the above is true, other (better) browsers will lack a significant foothold in most corporate environments.

The bottom line: as long as Microsoft remains relevant in the enterprise server market (and their market share is huge), IE will continue to be relevant. I wish it were otherwise, and I've been waiting for ten years to be proven wrong.

It_Figures

@zarathustra I've tried loading the acid2 test from webstandards.org one very browser I have but it refuses to load so I went to acidtests.org and took screenshots of both Acid2 and Acid3 tests on FF3 B3, IE8 and IE8 emulating IE7...links below

[screencast.com]
Acid 3 IE8

[screencast.com]
Acid 2 IE8

[screencast.com]
Acid3 IE8 emulating IE7

[screencast.com]
Acid 2 IE8 emulating IE7

[screencast.com]
Acid 2 FF3 B3

[screencast.com]
Acid 3 FF3 B3

baltron

@zarathustra

insofar as the ACID 2 test goes I can't get it to load from webstandards.org in any browser. I can however get it to load from acidtests.org. I've taken a number of screenshots of both FF3 Beta and IE8 beta for the acid 2 and acid 3(which I just found on /. today)

Here are some links that I just threw together with the help of Jing :-)

[screencast.com]
Acid 3 IE8

[screencast.com]
Acid 2 IE8

[screencast.com]
Acid3 IE8 emulating IE7

[screencast.com]
Acid 2 IE8 emulating IE7

[screencast.com]
Acid 2 FF3 B3

[screencast.com]
Acid 3 FF3 B3

Fun stuff!

baltron

Well, it fails. And it fails miserably on some sites; both mine and other popular ones I visited. It's worse than IE7 with the short time I've spent browsing. Don't bother. Use Firefox or Opera or Safari.

rob_belics

Note: sorry for the double post.

I did try using Safari 3 as well with both ACID 2 and 3...for the ACID2 Safari loaded it almost instantly but it was somewhere in between FF3 and IE8 for the ACID3...

[screencast.com]
Acid 3 Safari 3.0.4 for Windoze

[screencast.com]
Acid 2 Safari 3.0.4 for Windoze

baltron

I'm having the same problem with installing it in Vista SP1. Any way to install? The message box I get says "This Installation does not support your operating system's current Service Pack version. mine's v.668

bjppolo

I've got it running on an XP machine - It does import from Opera, does not import from Safari. AlTools toolbar appears to work correctly. Seems relatively nice to use - I'd still prefer to work with Firefox - but untill I can persuade my clients to all do the same - this isn't a completely dreadful option.

Scootah

Hmm, don't know if I am brave enough to try installing this.

Has anyone tried Sandbox-ing it? That should theoretically let you get rid of it if you don't like it.

"Sandboxie runs your applications in an isolated abstraction area called a sandbox. Under the supervision of Sandboxie, an application operates normally and at full speed, but can't effect permanent changes to your computer. Instead, the changes are effected only in the sandbox."

da5id_nz

I cant wait until ies4linux gets it up and running for us web developers on linux!

ricardo.slacker

@baltron:

via the IE blog - [blogs.msdn.com]

You have to use the Acid2 test at [www.webstandards.org] for it to work.

prospero

Internet Explorer 8 is already in BETA now? Come on, our high-school still uses Internet Explorer 6, after downgrading 50 computers from Vista...

Dooga

I'm trying to think of something positive............................................................................................Oh well..............

rtipping

I am sorry, thanks for the article, but I won't even waste my time with this or any other Microsuck browser. I can't think of anything positive, you know it's got to be buggy, it WILL crash and it can't be anywhere as good as Firefox. I just don't trust a damned thing that Microsoft puts out anymore. Leave it up to Microsoft to make a new thing that is worse then than the old (eg. Vista).

qpease

Microsoft will never understand why Firefox is clearly a better browser than IE7/IE8. Unless they add something major like better theme and extension support, IE8 aint going nowhere as long as Firefox stands in its way.

thelastdestroyer

Ok...

If you install the beta you can't access the Windows Update site, it tells me to install at least IE 5 :)

Well, I guess they're gonna fix that soon, but still kinda funny!

Murazorz

@Scootah: IE8 does offer to import my feeds and favorites from Safari, at least on my Vista laptop, just as it offers to do the same for Opera. (Only Firefox gets extension support.)

@Gina Trapani: See my response above concerning IE8's Opera and Safari support.

Mysterius

Hopefully they update the UI a lot. I'm addicted to FF3's url bar. That thing is psychic. I can't use IE7 for the horrible UI. I can't even find out how to do anything simple without tons f work. Turning on the old menu bar makes it take up even more space...

I'll stick with my quick, intuitive FF3, for the moment. This beta is actually worthwhile...

I'm on Linux too (on my laptop), so that influences it =P. But my Home desktop won't be getting IE8 anytime soon.

Daniel

I do not see how installing beta software, especially something like a web browser so closely tied into an operating system, would be recommended on a site that is purportedly dedicated to "Getting Things Done."

Stop this. Stop encouraging people to install alpha, beta, or release candidates. This is not "Getting Things Done." This is "Not Getting Things Done."

Let the Slashdotters who love living on the bleeding edge of technology deal with this crap.

Deprong Mori

@Gina Trapani: I care. I have not been a Firefox user since I've owned my new laptop. Having IE7pro means I have the functionality I need (except better Gmail.. when do we get the IE version?)

I have questions about the beta: 1) I don't like extra toolbars so I don't use the Favorites bar. What are the improvements in this version that would make me use it (the Fav bar)?
2) I can run this alongside IE7, right?

burnblue

The IE 8 Beta found 7 of my 20+ Addons and recommended similar ones: a Core 2 Duo and other hardware... - so if I buy a Core 2 Duo I'll get AdBlock Plus?!? :-D

After playing around with the beta for a while I realized that installing it killed my vlited Vista SP1 (no IE) activation... I've been lucky that there was a restore point...

Back to the best browser ever: Firefox 3beta5pre ;-)

singularity0821

does anyone care? Unfortunately IE 6 is the only browser allowed where I work. (tried installing IE7--I've never seen the IT guys notice something so fast)

karlawithak

Wasn't expecting to hear of IE8 at all yet.

If IE8 gives something great sure I'd be interested. Not like the rest of these people who have NO idea about a product and are spouting that it's already crap.

I don't give two hoots what program I am using. If it does what I want the best I know of, and looks great, I don't care who it's made by, I'm there.

Onouris

This is definitely a significant improvement over IE7 although I still find Firefox interface way better.

One thing in IE8 interface, I thought was really cool over Firefox is the highlighting of the actual domain name in the address bar and graying out the rest, which'll make it easier for users to identify bogus sites.

I was majorly disappointed that "Find in page" still opens a separate box instead of being integrated in the browser page itself like Firefox and the rest.

karn_sp

I unfortunately have no choice but to use IE. I use a web site for business that will not run in Firefox for some reason. It displays funny and the menus don't function. I have of course complained several times to the IT dept of the site but of course to no avail.

regul8r

I've installed the IE8 beta. I tend to avoid these things till I absolutely have to install it, but this seemed like the right thing to do now that I'm a developer. I -do- like the IE7 emulation mode (even if it does require a full restart of the browser), but it remains to be seen if IE8 will actually be standards compliant. I've done a brief lowdown with screenshots here:
[geekravings.blogspot.com]

I'll be sticking with Firefox, but it is nice to know that I can use this browser to test IE7 and IE8.

shockwaver

@BuckSummerCamp - Unfortunately it seems like you can only have one installed on your machine. I went out on a limb and installed it, sort of messed up my development environment this morning. It does have an option to emulate IE7 though, which works pretty well at least as far as the rendering engine is concerned (I do not know about plugins or other features).

tclay

A big thank you to the guys who posted the screenshots of the relevant Acid tests. Cheers guys.

zarathustra

I tried it, didn't like it, uninstalled it, IE7 didn't work, tried to reinstall IE7 SP2, and IE7 SP2 still doesn't work. Glad I use Flock as my primary web browser. :(

vanillacokehead

Who oh why will they not disentangle their browser enough to easily allow multiple versions side by side?

dl__

@tm2ts: IE is RAM hoggy? What about firefox?

amigokin

The current chatter coming from Microsoft about IE8 is actually surprisingly positive from the perspective of us longing for decent web standards support from IE. Most significant is that it (almost) passes Acid2, and that this rendering engine will be the default for the browser - developers will have to explictly opt in to have their page rendered in quirks mode (or 'Internet Explorer Mode' if we're being snippy).

The current developer blogs even suggest there will be some support for CSS3.

I'd call it a positive step, although from a security perspective I'm a bit uncomfortable about the HTML engine being ActiveX. Does suggest that they're intending to stick with the current UI for a while, at a guess this will lead to a more flexible and updateable renderer. You can dream at least!

kidnoodle

Makes little difference to the majority of us who are using the better browser. Let MS continue their wonderful work on their shiny browser, I'm sticking to the better alternatives. thanks for the post anyway...

headsmacker

@Rhywun: you got any stats to back that up or are you just talkin'?

how about a little proof?

also: i'm sure lifehacker will have an IE8 vs FF3 when both are out of beta. i look forward to it.

Hoaxe

Wow, the Firefox fanboys are out in full force today. If one has nothing to significant to contribute other than "M$$ Sux0rs!!1!!" then why bother? IE is going to used by 80% of the market for the foreseeable future - any improvement in the software should be welcomed.

Rhywun

@Hoaxe: Of course I don't have "proof". That is my opinion--we are allowed to express opinions, yes? My point is that when the topic is Internet Explorer it is a complete waste of everybody's time to post content-free "Firefox is better" comments.

BTW, I have used each of IE, Firefox, and Safari for years and each one has its pluses and minuses. IE6 sucked hard it's true, but I find IE7 pretty decent. So many people act as if Firefox is the last word in browsers. Hardly.

Rhywun

Can it run on XP Pro or is it just for Visa and Windows Server 2008?

Lawk Salih

This is good news since most people still use IE and will upgrade. No more stupid IE only website hacks for us developers. All the Firefox fanboys need to calm down though, it's far from perfect, imho Opera beats Firefox, it's quicker, has better standards support, less security issues and in my experience crashes less. If only I could install IE8 seperately. And is that screenshot right? Express settings default search engine is google??

decays

I find it rather interesting that Microsoft is releasing IE 8 so early? IE1, IE2, IE3, IE4, IE5 & IE6 were all released only with a new version of Windows. Then all of a sudden with IE7, they change it. And why? Because Microsoft realized that IE6 had a massive design flaw and the only alternative to releasing a new IE version was to tell the public that using IE at all is a massive security risk and no patch could fix it since it was a design flaw.

So to Microsoft I say is this, you may have covered your tracks well enough for most technically challeneged folks, but for those of us that have the knowledge, you have not fooled. As punishment for your deception, we will continue to steer people away from using your Internet Explorer product and releasing additional versions of IE will not change that.

jasonleduc

I just tried to install.

I downloaded it then tried to install it. It failed because I am "missing" some Windows update. So I then went to download the update but first had to validate my Windows XP. Once I validated I downloaded the update and started the install. The update install stopped because I have a SP that has a newer version of the update. Retried the IE8 Install failed for original problem of "missing" the update. sigh

This is why people hate MS. Why all the runaround?! Microsoft's software isn't compatible with it's own software.

BTW I'm running XP SP3.

appsbyaaron

This looks to me like Microsoft is trying to out-do Firefox, which is clear with the page "similar fox extensions" yet it only found one match. Microsoft knows that Firefox is a huge competitor and growing by the day. At one time, I think it was about a year ago, Microsoft stated that it "will not go in the direction of firefox, as far as add ons and extensions go." Personally, Firefox will always be my browser of choice, even though it's not forced on me like IE when I buy a new OS.

m60dude5

> Personally, Firefox will always be my browser of choice,
> even though it's not forced on me like IE when I buy a new OS.

Sigh. IE is not "forced" on anybody. Every major OS on the planet comes bundled with a browser. Why MS is singled out for bundling a browser with the OS is a mystery to me.

PS. I agree with the poster above who pleaded to stop recommending we install Beta software. Guess what, Firefox fanboys? The first FF3 Beta was useless, too. (Beta 3 is getting there, finally. Except the bookmark screen is still messed up.)

Rhywun

Eh...I can understand releasing a Beta where some things are still broken. I don't understand releasing one without a basic set of features to match competitors. Why can't I rearrange the toolbars and individual buttons, how hard is that to implement?

also, text fields are broken - I am trying to select some of what I'm typing here with the mouse, but different text is actually being highlited.

Do they event want feedback - if so, where do you give it?

iblokh

@Rhywun: "even though it's not forced on me like IE when I buy a new OS."
IE is very hard to get rid of, if you don't want it. In fact, Microsoft won't certify a computer for Dell or HP if they remove the IE part and try to put another or no browser on the computer. I applaud Microsoft for coming out with IE 8 (which was kind of fast after 7 don't you think) and I'm sure it is much more reliable than previous versions, but I still think Firefox will continue to grow. But everyone will always have their favorites.

PS. if you want to see something cool search for a video on Youtube about a virus in IE and Firefox. Does nothing to firefox, but makes IE shake like crazy.

m60dude5

I am using IE8 atm, it is brillient but dose not have iFrame support.

Acid test 2 passed.
Acid test 3 failed with a score of only 17, although this is a beta, and hey Firefox dose not even pass acid2.

On a diffrent note, saffari for windows is even better! Passes acid test 2 out of the box and with the nightly web build installed it gets sooo close to completing acid3 with 90, i give it 2 days before they crack acid3.

Good bye to both moz fox and ie in my eyes. Then again having to cater for 5 browsers has always been a head ache, but hey i always welcome a new challenge. Just don;t use google maps, iFrames and any major DOM scripting and you should be fine. Hang on wait.... Shit my work load just got doubled.

omol

@Rhywun: [www.w3schools.com] report that about 55% of browsers report that they're IE at this point. It's not a verifiable statistic - but since browser client header spoofing is rarely a statisitically significant occurence - it's a pretty solid indication.

80% of the market reporting IE browsers last happened in 2004.

Scootah

For those who cry out for web page compliance - be very afraid; you may just get what you wished for... in IE8, that is.

You won't be able to see most web pages as they are designed with IE8; it is w3 compliant to a fault - actually to many faults! It is so purely compliant that the majority of web pages on the internet today will not render correctly in it. You are almost forced to use the IE7 - Mimic Mode. Take a look at these articles:
[techreport.com]
[www.joelonsoftware.com]

IE8 CAN pass the Acid#2 test but it cannot render about 70% to 80% of the web pages correctly. This is progress?

I'll stick with bouncing between Firefox and Opera.

Jim

J-Mac