IE 8 Beta

Now Internet Explorer 8 has release its beta version and this article will make a showcase and explorer on what’s new in the next version.

I download and install IE8 on my Windows XP Professional Desktop.

One thing that I keep waitting for is, I don’t have to restart my PC when installing new version of Internet Explorer. In fact, I have to restart my PC or I still see IE7 starting up. But that’s ok, it was expected already.

Now I get to startup IE8 Beta for the first time and it took me through the wizard…

New! I started to see a new feature “Suggested Sites”, I enabled it

I chose custom settings to see what’s available

I kept my existing search provider

New! Accelerator providers. I’d like to be more personalize, so I chose “Show me a web pages after setup…”

New! What is SmartScreen filter? let’s turn it on and see what it’s all about

At this point, I still love Firefox

First thing I see after completed the wizard

Ops.. I cannot close inactive tab with one click!

I am wondering what else not convenience… let’s explore it.

Exploring

Find as you type

This feature should have been included since version 7. I have been in peace with Firefox for along time, now I know there is alternative.

Page Zoom

You can use Ctrl + to zoom in, Ctrl - to zoom out and Ctrl 0 (not shown in the option menu) to reset.

View Source Code

Attention Software Developer! you can now view source code in IE with Colorized Syntax. Finally your eyes get to relax.

Know how you get here

Whenever you click on Link (open with new Tab) from another web pages, you will see both tabs  (or more) painted with the same color. So you know where you came from, and you can easily go back to it if needed.

Address Bar Shortcuts

You can use the following shortcut keys

• Shift + Enter : go to auto-completed address from your history
• Enter : go to current typed url
• Ctrl + Enter : go to current typed domain name with auto complete
  http://[what you type here].com on both end. eg, if you type google it will take you to http://google.com
• Alt + Enter : go to current typed url in a new Tab
• Alt + Shift + Enter : go to current typed url in a new Tab in the background

SmartScreen Filter

I get now get to know what SmartScreen filter is. It is a feature which tells you what is safe, what is not safe with your file downloads and website you are broswing.

This file was downloaded with safe report

Open google.com.au and click on Tools > SmartScreen Filter > Check this website, I get a safe report message like this

Private Browsing

You can chose to browse web pages without keeping any history if your current session. Use InPrivate feature

Prevents Internet Explorer from storing data about your browsing session. This includes cookies, temporary Internet files, history, and other data.

Suggested Sites

Find out how efficient this feature give you, I open google.com.au as current website then I click on Suggested Site button, it gives me this

I open yahoo.com.au in a new tab, it gives me this

Now I come back to google.com.au tab and click on suggested website, it gives me the suggested sites base on yahoo.com.au ?!

Again I go to microsoft.com it gives me suggested sites base on microsoft.com, but when I come back to yahoo.com.au and google.com.au, it still gives me suggested site base on microsoft.com even if I close microsoft.com tab.

I can say that, this feature only work base on the latest website in the current session, not current tab.

Message from Author

For Firefox lover, it’s time to give Internet Explorer a try and see how comfortable you feel toward it. I’d love to share any comment you have, please post them here.