Microsoft Demos, Releases First Beta of Internet Explorer 8

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

I was expecting this, because I knew that Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager for Internet Explorer would be speaking about - and demonstrating - IE8 at MIX on Wednesday. Microsoft has released the first beta version of Internet Explorer 8 to the public, with a warning that this first release is intended for developers.

You can download the beta here. As I wrote earlier, IE8 will default to a standards-compliant mode. Thus, as Microsoft indicated earlier, you have to set it into an IE7 emulation mode if you want that behavior.

This beta release is available to everyone, but is primarily for Web developers and designers to test the new tools, layout engine, and programming enhancements. When not developing your web site, you can click the Emulate IE7 button in the command bar to browse the web like you did in IE7.

At MIX, Hachamovitch highlighted 8 key points, the first of which was the availability of the beta. The other 7:

1. Microsoft’s goal is to deliver complete, full CSS 2.1 support in IE8.
2. Microsoft has contributed over 700 test cases to the W3C CSS working group.
3. Scripting performance has been improved.
4. They’ve begun support for HTML5.
5. First installment of built-in developer tools.
6. “Activities” - a new (and they say, better) way for web services to integrate into the user’s workflow. For example, a user can select text on a web page and map it, blog it, look for it, or just act on it without having to copy it, open a new tab, navigate to another site, and paste.
7. WebsSlices. Developers can make parts of their pages “subscribable” with a mark-up, and users can easily subscribe and keep an eye on information on just that part of the page. An example is shown here (if you have IE8).

Of course, beta that it is, some users are seeing problems:

• Problems installing
• High CPU usage
• Slow performance
• It now fails the Acid2 Test (which Microsoft said in December IE8 had passed). See image.

Ah well, that’s what the term “beta” is for.