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Microsoft released the second Beta for Internet Explorer 8 last week, which paves the way for a final release later this year. The new browser demonstrates a number of usability, security, and privacy features that make it a huge improvement over IE 7, including abilities that FireFox users have taken for granted since the FireFox 3 (and even in previous versions). Familiar features such as a better Address Bar, crash recovery, and improved in-page search won’t get Firefox devotees to switch over, but genuinely innovative tools like InPrivate browsing and Tab grouping may warrant your attention. We sort through the full list of Beta 2 features to see what ideas IE8 did and didn’t borrow from its world record-breaking open-source rival.
Website navigation is made easier with IE 8’s “Smart Address Bar”, which feels a lot of Firefox 3’s Awesome Bar. In addition to providing URL string matches as you type in the main navigation toolbar, the browser now produces suggestions based on your browsing history, favorites list, and RSS feeds. The drop down window groups the recommendations based on type for easy scanning, and worked well in practice. One bonus feature we definitely like is the option to manually delete auto-complete entries from the list to refine the suggestions (to eliminate previously visited sites with typos in their URLs).
In previous versions of Internet Explorer, the Links Bar was turned off by default. Microsoft claims that only a small percentage of users knew how to turn it on, but their research showed that the “power users” who did enable it loved it. In IE 8, the Links Bar is a more prominent feature, and renamed to the Favorites Bar (in FireFox, it’s called the Bookmarks Bar). The bar can be used to save websites, RSS feeds, and new “web slices” (more on that later). Bookmarking to the bar is also now a one-click affair, which we suppose is useful if you’re frequently removing and adding sites to the bar. Favorites management is otherwise unchanged, and still lacks the bookmark tagging feature found in Firefox.
Anti-phishing filters are nothing new, and IE 8’s SmartScreen Filter (which has to be enabled from the new Safety menu) adds a tiny bit more functionality to protect users from malicious sites. With the Filter enabled, the browser will examine websites for suspicious URLs and compare them with a centrally hosted database of known offenders. Users can manually check and report suspicious-looking sites as well. In Firefox, anti-phishing and malware protection is turned on by default, and checks the sites you visit against a local or external database (such as one provided by Google).
Firefox has had this feature since version 2, and it’s nice to see Microsoft finally incorporate it into Internet Explorer. The keyboard shortcut to reopen an accidentally closed tab is the same as the one in Firefox – Ctrl + Shift + T. The only thing different is that you can also access previous closed tabs from a new landing page that appears when you open a new empty tab. This page lists all the tabs you’ve closed in that browsing session, and gives you the option of reopening one or all of them.
Finally! Searching through a web page with Ctrl+F no longer brings up a pop-up window. Instead, the Find on this Page toolbar is integrated into the UI, and pops up underneath the Favorites toolbar (not at the bottom of the window like it is in Firefox). A bonus: the last term you used in the web Search toolbar is automatically copied to the Find toolbar when you open it.
Comments are closed on this article
Nogoodname
September 03, 2008 at 2:34pm
google chrome has a porn button like IE8
just rightclick on a link and click open in incognito window in chrome
yagisencho
September 03, 2008 at 12:27pm
It seems peculiar to me to provide an overview of a browser strictly by way of comparison with a single competing browser. Will the next version of Safari be compared to Opera? I say either create a feature table with all major browsers listed, or simply discuss what's new in this version over the old version. It's just weird.
jihnn
August 20, 2009 at 10:39am
news flash.......
this was a comparison of the major browsers all the rest are just wannabes
big_montana
September 03, 2008 at 12:06pm
Just remove the checkmark from Authenticated Sessions when you run Clear Private Data and you will not lose your login information. Am I the only one who pays attention to everything that it will clear when run?
nsvander
September 03, 2008 at 6:56pm
I use the Clear Private Data feature on FF, and I love it. I have it set to clear everything, as my female cousin likes to show up unannounced and use office on my computer. That way if she decides to check her mail from this machine I dont have to worry about trying to explain p0rn or what ever else may be lurking in the history. I know that I could just lock the machine down and giver her a profile but with folding and other programs that I run, I would like to leave it to my ready at a moments notice.
teknohed
September 03, 2008 at 9:49am
"to eliminate previously visited sites with typos in their URLs"
That is a great alternative use. Like many "power users" who occassionally share their computers with other users, the "awesome" bar has been more trouble than it's worth. Every now and then one of my girlfriends buddies will check her email on my machine only to be offered several colorful URL suggestions as they type in "http://www.hot" for hotmail.
Oh those? HotPics2000? I can say...those were typos...this damn browser saves everything you put in unfortunatly...here let me delete that...huh, how wierd.
zeringue
September 03, 2008 at 8:06am
I am surpised that Google CHROME is not all over this site yet. I like Chrome the littly bit i have used it. The best part about Chrome to which i wish MS would do, is allow each tab to work in a separate process. I open 7 tabs for my IE 7 home page and it seems each one has to download in order instead of the same time. and if one tab crashes, i loose them all.
But Chrome is certainly the ugliest browser, extremely flat and bland looking. It performs well, the builtin search and address bar is cool; simular to VISTA/2008 start menu.
maza13
September 03, 2008 at 12:26am
am glad that IE is being improved as much as it is. Sure it's borrowing some features from Firefox, and that's ok as long as they can improve on some of those features. I am not saying that IE is better but sometimes it's good to take something and make it better. It's time to stop bashing IE for the shortcomings and praise it for the improvements it has made. Not everything is perfect after all, it's just taking some time to see the faults and in some cases to fix it... Adobe Flash 9 anyone?
nsvander
September 02, 2008 at 8:21pm
InPrivate Browsing sounds like a nice feature, but I have a simialar feature already turned on in FireFox and its been there since before FF2. You can have it clear all your private data (cookies, passwords, download history, browsing history, etc.) as soon as you close the browser down. Its not the exact same as IE8's in that you have to close the browser and not just a window, but it works well enough for me.
PCIV
September 02, 2008 at 7:32pm
From the great people at tom's hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-ie8-browser,6306.html
DO i really want to run something that'll slow a computer to a crawl, just so it keeps tabs seperate. It might take longer to get a new tab when you have 10+ tabs vs restarting FF3...
winmaster
September 07, 2008 at 10:12am
I agree, what's the point of tabbed browsing if all of the tabs run is separate processes. If I wanted every web page I'm viewing to run is separate processes, I would just open mulitple instances of the browser and switch between them on the taskbar. Duh!
streetking
September 02, 2008 at 6:59pm
I see that the back and forward buttons and the stop and refresh buttons are on opposite sides of the address bar. STILL. And the lonely little homepage button all by itself on another row. Awww. Stupid IE...
