- Jawad

I'm happy to have more standards compliance, but could care less about the gee-whiz features (anyone remember IE4 Active Desktop and "Channels"?). Those belong in extensions for people who want them. A browser should be lean and clean by default.

Bad news: Still no support for application/xhtml+xml, not even close on Acid3 (Opera 9.5 9755 passes 61), not good support for CSS3 selectors (granted that's not officially a final spec, but Opera 9.5 9755 gets 100%).

I'm dubious about some of the new features... interesting how Microsoft seems to continually rely on tying together their spectrum of offerings. IE8 includes convenient shortcuts to other web sites for various info... and many of those sites just happen to be Microsoft sites. I don't blame them for linking to their own services, but ironic that Microsoft is essentially "bundling" again.

Some of the new features seem similar to things like gadgets in iGoogle... this release is as much about Google as Firefox. Very happy to see that the WebSlices setup does not introduce proprietary tags and even uses the hAtom microformat.

I'm sure many users will find things like activites and WebSlices handy, but it still seems to me that Microsoft is way behind the curve on features innovation with web browsers. Many of these features have long been available via plug-ins. However, I'm glad to finally see features like session recovery.

All in all, this release is good news. It definitely demonstrates the IE team is serious about web standards now, and it signals we'll be seeing IE updates more frequently. IE8 is still behind other browsers in many ways, but kudos to the IE team for the progress they've made - it's going to help developers and users a bunch.

... is it any faster? I was a pretty devout IE7 user, until I tried out Firefox. IE7 is just TOO DAMN SLOW! If IE8 can at LEAST match Firefox in terms of speed, then, and ONLY then, will I consider switching back.

The real downside is no support for application/xhtml+xml, and from the documentation I'm seeing, we'll never see XHTML support for IE. Nor SVG.

This may not seem like much, but it is a significant break in the veneer of 'standards support' MS is wrapping itself in.

Oh, and don't try accessing my site if you're running the new IE8--I serve my pages up as application/xhtml+xml, and now I have to figure out if I have to 'break' them, just so IE users can read them.

This was Microsoft's thumbing its nose at the standards community, not embracing it.

But Opera is the best browswer (meant for users who like Web 2.0)

Its fast and the best!!!

http://blog.vftw.com/view/web/internet-explorer-8-beta-1-quick-test/

I'm delighted with the (intended) full support of CSS 2.1 and beginnings of HTML5 support. Even just the query selector API solves a lot of problems (look how much code in JS libraries is dedicated to solving that, and how much attention is given to performance bake-offs).

The improved developer tools are also welcome, including script debugging (without that stupid MSE script debugger), style tracing, the ability to switch rendering/script modes between IE5, IE7, and IE8.

I could care less about application/xhtml+xml since XHTML has no traction and draconian parsing is a non-starter.

Alex Russell (of Dojo fame) asked Chris Wilson if IE8 would add SVG support or "fix" VML, and Chris basically made it sound like they wouldn't. Alex was bummed, but those of us who are happy to use Flash or Silverlight for charts and vector graphics can stand to wait for those features.

If you're a drudge fan: drudgetracker.com

JavaScript fixes do seem to be disappointing... not only is Acid3 pitiful, but some of the W3C test suites fail often.

@Bill: Not sure what you're seeing - buzz.yahoo.com looks beautiful in IE8 on my box. Passing Acid2 is a huge indicator of improved CSS support - IE8 is definitely more CSS-compliant. Sites using browser checks may still feed IE8 non-standard code, so that could cause some rendering issues, but hopefully such cases are rare after the IE7 roll-out.

@dnl2ba: HTML5 certainly has more traction right now, but don't write off XHTML - it's better suited in some applications, such as when using extensions like MathML. I wonder about the HTML5 support, though... have you read anything about how much Microsoft is supporting with this version, or this beta?

@Shelley: I wouldn't go quite that far, though it is disappointing... and lack of SVG is disappointing too.

@JediMaster: I only use IE for development testing, so I can't give much comparison to IE7, but so far it does seem a little faster to me... certainly seems to load faster. Probably not as fast as Firefox or Opera, though.

Speed reminds me of a point I forgot to mention in my original comment... has anyone noticed the bit about Loosely-Coupled Internet Explorer? Supposedly it's for stability, but I was a bit surprised - it sounds like multiple tabs in IE will now be like multiple windows in IE of old, where every tab is a separate process. That sounds like a performance nightmare to me... memory usage in multiple IE windows historically was much higher than multiple tabs in Opera, for instance. I'm wondering how this will play out for heavy users... and it doesn't seem necessary with session recovery.

@Karan: Well, yes, Opera is the fastest and best, but not everyone has realized that yet. :)

Truth is that IE is a very average browser, plagued by security issues, slower than a sloth on holiday and it would not know a compliant web page if it fell over it, I could go on...

There are better alternatives out there (and not just Firefox - although I use it). I just can't get excited about a product that does not deserve any excitement what so ever.

I will reserve my final judgment of IE till the dust settles. But if history has anything to do with it, it will be the usual browser slop from Microsoft that gives people the impression that IE is the only thing you can look at the web with.

Which was quite like IE6.

What a fast 'upgrade'.

Booo-urns.

I don’t know why the Microsoft is so keen on copying the firefox. When we run the IE 8, it opens 2 taps just like firefox.

Did you see firefox beta 3? I think soon IE gona loose the battle with firefox!

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fromswitchestotargets

thanks

ok so it has the vista look and feel, fine to be expected, but why oh why is the File Edit View ... under the buttons and address bar.

As Giuliano said needs to go on a diet FAST!
What is with the huge spacing used for each UI component, the Favorites icon and font are way to big, and even if that was not the only thing they have been givven so much padding that even your mum could fit into it and still have room to turn around.

as for the tabs, well same story really.

Not to mention the SAFARI SEARCH ICON that has just been flipped horizontally, and lets not even start on the usability or readability of the glow on the text in the title area :)

the initial descriptions and threads about IE8 sounded promising but i think this will definitely be the end of IE now, good job Microsoft :) Firefox/Safari will take over the rest of your users now for sure

Our stats for our web application still has 60%+ of our users on IE6. I just hope when IE8 comes out Microsoft will force the existing XP users to upgrade to IE7. Now that would make development at lot easier than it is today.

I have tested the browser on various websites and programms and have discovered (see my blog at RSIM - Internet Marketing Blog) some failures.

If you have a look at the Dell-Website you will discovery that various ads and some look and feel will be different than watched with IE7, IE6 or Firefox.

DHTML (simple DIV-visabilites) on the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) is shown wrong.

The WordPress-Admin-Site is not shown correct and some features cannot be used (I have tried to update an entry).


To me it looks like Microsoft is still ignoriing basics. And they know it (otherwise what is that Emulate IE7-Button for?)

(And by the way: What browser is this! You have to restart your computer after installing! That's absolut nonsense.)

Actually I feel almost guilty. I still had several pages of technical notes (some of which got the guys sitting next to me to mutter, "About F'ing time!") and didn't have time to include the info in the article.

You DO know the sessions are online, right? You can see Chris' whole video at the Mix site.

Microsoft needs to work on this more.

Let's hope that hold off the release until it scores 100% on both tests.

To post 23 by dnl2ba ... "draconion parsing"? HA! Tag soup is lame. You think XHTML has no traction? View the source of this very web page and check the Doctype ... it's XHTML 1.0 Strict! XHTML is everywhere but being read by the wrong parser thanks to Microsoft. Compound Document Formats (CDF) could be a new and exciting way to develop web pages by mixing XHTML, SVG, MathML, XForms, etc. into a single document via namespaces. But do you think Microsoft wants to see that happen? Of course not. They just want to sell Silverlight and screw CDF.

period

thank's