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Worth the wait for IE 8 Release Candidate 1?
If you've played around with the previous beta versions of Internet Explorer 8, there's not much new in today's IE 8 Release Candidate 1. The feature improvements from IE 7 haven't changed: Web slices, InPrivate browsing, and Microsoft's new add-on system known as Accelerators remain the big-ticket items. Security enhancements include the SmartScreen Filter, which warns you in advance if other users have reported an URL as suspicious.
Users can force-add sites to the Compatibility script in IE 8 RC1.
(Credit: CNET Networks)What has been improved in the RC is stability. Users who experienced persistent and irritating browser crashes should expect to see a much more stable browsing environment. The Compatibility feature has been automated to a large degree, which means that the browser will detect and re-render Web sites designed for IE 7 that wouldn't otherwise load properly in IE 8.
The problem is that high-traffic Web sites that don't cause problems in other browsers still don't play well with IE 8, necessitating this "compatibility" fix. Maybe Internet Explorer can get around to being Web standards compliant in IE 9.
Users can finally force-add a Web site to be re-rendered by the Compatibility script. Under Tools, click on Compatibility View settings to add or remove a site. You can also disable the script by unchecking the box for using updated lists from Microsoft that appears at the bottom of the settings window.
Accelerators are links that cut out the steps needed to blog, tweet, or use Facebook.
(Credit: CNET Networks)I also found that IE 8 felt slower to load, and it's definitely slower to run: IE 8 RC1 clocked a SunSpider JavaScript test at 9,874 ms, compared with Firefox 3.1 beta 2's 3,212 ms. Granted, the release candidate is faster than IE 8 beta 2's 12,395 ms. All of these were tested on a Windows Vista Pentium 4 with 2 GB of RAM.
Despite the time that Microsoft has spent developing IE 8, they've proven to be reluctant to react to market-wide browser changes. Users who notice similarities between how Firefox, Chrome, and Opera look, feel, and operate, will be struck by how dissimilar IE 8 is. The lack of a smart URI bar stood out for me in particular. Although you can search in IE 8 from the location bar, it won't take you directly to a page in IE 8. Search for "CNET Download" in Firefox, and you'll be taken directly to download.com. Search for it in IE 8, and you're given a list of results from your preferred search engine.
The address bar will pull matches from your history and favorites list as you type, but that's still an extra step that I've moved away from.
Opening a new tab was an exercise in boredom served with a layer of frustration, too, as the CTRL+T hot key froze IE 8 and took more than 30 seconds. The e-mail button, which brings your e-mail client to the front or opens it if it's closed, respects your default client choice. However, switching to the privacy browsing feature InPrivate opens a new window based at the top of your screen--regardless of where you've had IE living.
One aspect of InPrivate has changed. You can now turn on InPrivate Blocking on the Menubar under Safety, even when InPrivate hasn't been activated. This allows you to surf with a stricter level of third-party site security. It's not entirely clear what it can or can't block, though. It doesn't seem to block ads, but it can block news tickers.
If you've been using Internet Explorer 8 betas up until now, you'll probably enjoy finally getting a release candidate. Overall, there's nothing stunningly different here, so don't expect a massive shift in browser usage patterns from IE 8.
Microsoft has yet to announce a timeline for the stable release of IE 8, nor is a version currently available for the Windows 7 beta. A full list of changes is available in the IE 8 Release Candidate 1 changelog.
Seth peers into the deep, dark corners of software so that you don't have to. He has yet to suffer a single nightmare about OS/2. You can follow him on Twitter. 
? Easier to find information, to navigate, to search, to work with tabs. Accelerators and Web Slices blur the lines between the online services that make each person's browsing unique and the browser itself, making the IE8 experience richer.
? Safer and more reliable with advanced privacy protection that no other browser can match.
It's not better or worse than Chrome, FF or Opera. They are all different and match different use cases. I use all of them.
PS -- How do you get the addons to work Google Chrome?LOL
You must be kidding me. I have been running IE8 RC for a while and it is really fast, especially the loading time. You must have done something wrong.
As for the speed, IE8 is way faster than Firefox. And the 'smart address bar' in Firefox is clunky, unattractive, and takes up to much room. IE8's is scalable, shows one only what is needed, and matches the rest of the operating system's look. Opera and Chrome are jokes and I don't regard them as serious browsers in the least. They're niche browsers at best--destined to spend their entire existence along with Netscape and AOL Browser. IE8 matches Firefox feature for feature, and adds some Firefox still lacks.
Ouch. Or maybe it is because we all give MS browsers something for IE6/7 while IE8 works more like the others so our butchered version for IE now does more harm than good. IE8 isn't so bad on the standards it supports. A bit behind the times still, but sufficient. What MS does that fails us all is to still let the old versions survive rather than force upgraded.
"I also found that IE 8 felt slower to load" -- this sounds like you are comparing it to a previous version, where farther along you state that you are comparing it to Fx 3.1b (my favorite browser). I wish CNET would keep news rather than having everything be blogs. A journalist would instead write "As compared to the newest beta of Firefox 3.1, I found that IE felt slower to load..." rather this other crap.
Heck, with the website authoring tools that I have seen recently, I could make a "Bank of America" clone website in less than 10 hours.
Thanks. I stopped reading right about here. I was afraid of this. I don't see why Microsoft has to release _another_ browser that needs "tweaking" and still call it progress. 2 massively popular non-compliant browsers were hard enough to deal with.
Internet Explorer 8 IS standards compliant. The problem is that websites which load different code for IE 6 and 7, to make up for their poor standards support, do the same for IE 8 when it doesn't need it! It's the duty of website designers to make sure their IE 6/7 hacks don't apply to IE 8.
meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7"
Backward-compatibility is amazing progress, considering that it's a Microsoft app, so at least they've done something right. The other thing they did right was to leave the stop/reload buttons immovable on the wrong side of the toolbar - that guarantees that users on Firefox won't even consider switching back.
Or maybe they should make the code public, like Netscape did, and hope others can do a better job
Still for the freelance web developer and web designer of the Web 2.0 age, the desire to add multi-functional web-based applications to a website with intense Photoshop design makes browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Opera the preferred choice. This is what I use 85% of the time when I code, and the other 15% goes to IE (because 60-70% of my users run IE.)
Although most of Microsoft's programs are dated codes looking for renovation, from a business standpoint Microsoft's programs will never die because they offer the most in a bundle than any other company..EASILY..
I will say again: there is NO website on the internet (I don't include company websites where they were stupid enough to allow their site writers to make them only IE compatible) that needs IE.
A note concerning the slow start problems mentioned in the article above ................ Internet Explorer is a far reaching application within the OS, it touches on many many components within the OS so time is needed for the system to adjust to this far reaching change. Make sure that it is installed within each user account on a PC and has been used for some time by each user before judging it. The system must adapt, this may take from a few hours to a few days. If you have "major" problems with it uninstall it and wait for a later version. Do try it again, however.
With the Betas we were removing it almost immediatly due to major problems.
most people actually think IE is the standard and that firefox is the one that renders stuff wrong.
they're taking advantage of that and saving some work. i guess.
The only 'standards' they don't support are the standards that haven't been finalized yet.
ACID 2 was reasonable because it only looked at very basic things..... ACID 3 goes into more complex functionality that.... well, there are DOZENS of ways to do them and still be compliant.
INTERESTING??? Microsoft trying to block google's success????
Yes! That must be it. Just because every other major browser including Firefox (on Mac and Windows), Opera, Chrome, Camino (on Mac), and Safari (on Windows, Mac, and iPhone) all happen to work flawlessly with Gmail then the problem MUST be Google! Certainly they need to work harder to be IE8 compliant.
Perfectly rational.
Yeah cause its just more rational that MS offers the availability of google as a search engine but IE but they're just trying to block Google's success
- by wiredchicken January 27, 2009 2:34 PM PST
- DOES MCAFEE NOW WORK WITH INTERNET EXPLORER 8 NOW???????
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- by Lerianis January 28, 2009 6:55 PM PST
- NOPE! And I have to say, I am PISSED that it doesn't work with McAfee software STILL... there was no reason for a SMALL change to IE8 to make McAfee software unable to display messages, though McAfee shouldn't be relying on IE to display messages in the first place.
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