ie8

IE 8 lacks speed, community

As CNET's Ina Fried reports, Microsoft is trying to downplay Internet Explorer 8's performance deficiencies, arguing that "in most cases, the difference could literally be measured by a blink of an eye."

I guess that it depends on who's blinking. Walt Mossberg, the noted personal-technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, rebuked IE 8's performance in an All Things Digital post, noting that in his tests, the new version of the Microsoft browser was slower than Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and Google's Chrome. All of them. Considerably slower, in many cases.… Read more

Mix 09: IE 8, Silverlight in the spotlight

roundup A new browser and would-be Flash rival Silverlight have starring roles at Microsoft's annual conference in Las Vegas for Web designers.

Hands-on with IE 8: A giant step for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 takes another large leap forward for the world's most-used browser, but is it enough to make devoted Firefox, Chrome, and Safari fans switch? • Browser war centers on once-obscure JavaScript (Posted in The Download Blog by Seth Rosenblatt) March 19, 2009 5:55 PM PDT Are catalogs the killer app for Silverlight? Silverlight's Deep Zoom offers a way to view magazines and catalogs … Read more

Hands-on with IE 8: A giant step for Microsoft

It's no secret that when judged by several popular Web browser speed tests, Internet Explorer 8 doesn't hold up well. Beta versions of IE 8 have been available to the general public for more than a year, and today's release of the stable build didn't include anything revolutionary.

Using the SunSpider JavaScript test, the official IE 8 scored 9849.4 ms on a Windows Vista machine with 2 GB of RAM and a 3.00 Ghz clock. This is significantly slower than most other major browsers. Not surprisingly, Microsoft claims (scroll down to Case Study Videos) … Read more

More secure, interestingly innovative

Update, March 14, 2011: Note that Internet Explorer 8 is now for Windows XP only. If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7, you are strongly encouraged to upgrade to Internet Explorer 9 (download) for improved browser security and better browsing features.

Internet Explorer 8 addresses just about all of the major concerns that users and critics have had with the world's most used browser. Whether they get answered in a way you like is another matter.

There are several new and interesting features. Web Slices lets you save predefined sections of a Web page for at-a-glance viewing. Instead … Read more

IE 8's more secure, interestingly innovative: video

Internet Explorer 8 takes some long-needed strides to bring it up to speed with its competitors. It's more secure, with tab sandboxing and more aggressive malicious site warnings, and introduces some slick new features like Accelerators and Web slices.

Even with better support for Web standards, it's far from perfect. Check out what's hot and what's not in this First Look video.

Installing Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 8 is now ready to download. We installed the final build of Microsoft's latest browser, and captured the (looong) download process and our first impressions of some of the featured highlights in pictures.

If that's not enough (it never is,) CNET's Ina Fried has the full story of Microsoft's launch of IE 8 at Redmond's MIX 09 conference, and some details about a version of the browser for Windows 7. Also stay tuned to Download.com for our forthcoming video review and an in-depth look at the features and faults we find with … Read more

Microsoft launches IE 8 with a smile

LAS VEGAS--Having finished its latest browser, Microsoft on Thursday kicked off its campaign to get consumers to actually start using it.

After years of losing market share to Firefox and other rivals, Microsoft is hoping to convince people, many of whom use old versions of Internet Explorer, to give the company a new look.

Part of that marketing push is a light-hearted video on the history of the Internet that also shows off some of the new features of Internet Explorer 8, including its private browsing mode and so-called "accelerators" that let users take action without leaving the … Read more

Microsoft set to unleash Internet Explorer 8

LAS VEGAS--Aiming to better compete against a growing list of rivals, Microsoft on Thursday is launching Internet Explorer 8, the latest version of its Web browser.

IE 8, as the browser is known, was first shown a year ago and has been in testing for months. The new browser adds security improvements, a private browsing option, as well as the ability to save pre-defined "slices" of a Web page for at-a-glance viewing.

But perhaps the biggest change in the browser is one made behind the scenes--the decision to make the browser better adhere to Web standards. That should … Read more

IE 8, Silverlight 3 on tap for Microsoft's Mix

A correction was made to this story. See below for details.

The expected release of Internet Explorer 8 is likely to be the biggest headline out of Microsoft's Mix conference this week, though the company is likely to spend at least as much time talking about Silverlight 3, the next version of its would-be rival to Adobe's Flash.

Microsoft has already released a near-final release candidate version of IE 8 and is widely expected to declare the browser done as it prepares to address a crowd of Web developers in Las Vegas starting on Wednesday. Microsoft used last … Read more