Review : Internet Explorer 8

The web browser segment is more competition driven than in the past. Now, it is not only Internet Explorer that has the monopoly but now it has many others in the competition and the major among them all is Firefox. 

Internet Explorer had been the dominating web browser in the market but it has always enjoyed controversies and had been in the bad reputation. But, now the company is all geared to bring its new version, IE8 which supposedly is the answer of all controversies and revolutionise the Internet browsing.

The software company assures that unlike its pervious versions, users will not complain about adware, viruses and other online annoyances. The company has put in many new features and many old existing features are being polished.

Here, we have tried to consolidate all the features for IE8 and provide you with a review that can hep you decide worthiness of IE8 for you:

Download Requirement

Before moving ahead to its features, lets pen down the minimal specifications that a user require on its PC to run IE8 without any problem. The user’s PC should be running Windows Vista, XP or Windows Server 2003, SP2 for operating system that you are using, and featuring minimum 512 MB RAM.

Design

Starting with design, the new browser is not much different from its predecessors. But yes it has some differences like placement of “X” to stop loading the site that you really don’t want to surf, Live Search toolbar that serves as a search engine and the addition of icons allowing users to customize their browsing experience. The icon addition feature is sometimes referred to as second “level” of IE8.

In the design aspect, the company seems to be aspiring by its competitor and has taken utmost care to add “tabbed” surfing. The users can open many tabs in one window and can switch to them easily. This makes surfing easier and quite pleasant for the user. Also, added to it is a basic menu options at the right end corner including homepage navigation; RSS feed display, printing, page view and basic browsing tools. 

Features

Coming next in the list is addition of InPrivate Browsing. This is the most controversial feature added to IE8 and consists of three parts, browsing, blocking and subscription. The browsing and blocking option remove the cache and history once you log off the mode and subscription gives you the control to manage the number of sites accessible through your PC.

The other helpful feature is Caret Browsing that can help users navigate through a web page using a keyword.

The very next and unique feature to IE8 is the addition of accelerator function that allows you to access other online services using a keyword without even switching over to next tab or window.

Next addition is the “Web Slices” feature that keeps you updated about any latest updates on any site without even disturbing your surfing or switching over to something new. You can track the updated content using Favorites bar, once you are thoroughly done with Web Slices.

Performance

In terms of addition of many new features, company has undoubtedly done a commendable and innovative job but in terms of performance, IE8 still has some issues. It shows some operable error with SP3 for XP, Windows Live Mail, Visual Studio .Net Version 7, viewing Netflix On Demand movies using Skype or Google Toolbar. But, this all is the result of beta testing. What final product will be like, we all have to wait to try our hands on.


At concluding note, it can be summed up that Microsoft has done a good job in figuring out how browsers can make internet surfing a pleasant experience.