IE8 Beta1 Launched

As of today Microsoft officially launched IE8 Beta!!

To download IE8 Beta 1
Internet Explorer 8 Beta: Home Page

Virtual PC HD Image - Thanks pdeprez
A hd image containing pre-activated Windows XP/Vista and IE6, IE7 or IE8.
Download details: IE App Compat VHD

Internet Explorer addon
IE7Pro - The Ultimate Add-On for Internet Explorer

 

[rdburke]

IE8 some website load gt faster but some is slow like hell....but i see news that IE8 passed d Acid 2 test....i use my firefox go test the Acid 2 test but cant display properly also....but the Safari 3,Opera and IE8 all passed..dunno y....:-S

Huh?

 

[william gunkel]

So here is the question, which is better IE or Firefox? Also what about Silverlight cross browser, do I need it. Finale question for now, why when I want to view a video clip on the web it stops and starts until I get tired of it and close the page. Using Vista 32 bit, Home Premium HP Pavilion, oh yes media player 11. Thanks, system is less that 6 mos old.

 

[dmex]

I get the same probs as Brink...Im uninstalling it for now until IE becomes usable again...


Im surprised at how many things are broken on websites, Microsoft either made things worse in this release or they where using hundreds of customizations to make pages load correctly.

 

[william gunkel]

After reading the discussion on IE8 I believe I will keep IE7 until Microsoft gets the bugs out. This might not the correct link to post this to but I need your help. With reference to viewing web pages with WMP11 which has all the updates. I still have this problem of start and stop. ie; I open up the IE and these news clips or video clips are there, I click on play and it starts out good both video and sound. About 5 seconds later it stops and the little wheel spins then starts and plays for another few seconds. To tell the truth I don't what add ons, etc. that I need to correct this problem. Any help will be greatly appreicated. Thanks

 

[KingOfChaos]

So here is the question, which is better IE or Firefox? Also what about Silverlight cross browser, do I need it. Finale question for now, why when I want to view a video clip on the web it stops and starts until I get tired of it and close the page. Using Vista 32 bit, Home Premium HP Pavilion, oh yes media player 11. Thanks, system is less that 6 mos old.

Firefox is better, by miles. Less clunky, less complicated and more useful security, as well as better expandability.

 

[Brink]

So here is the question, which is better IE or Firefox? Also what about Silverlight cross browser, do I need it. Finale question for now, why when I want to view a video clip on the web it stops and starts until I get tired of it and close the page. Using Vista 32 bit, Home Premium HP Pavilion, oh yes media player 11. Thanks, system is less that 6 mos old.

Hi William,

It's really a subjective thing. I would recommend trying them both out for a bit to see which one you like best. Firefox will easily uninstall from Programs & Features if you decide you do not like it. You can run both of them at the same time if you like both of them. You would just need to pick one to be the default web browser.

Silverlight is Microsoft's add-on version of Adobe Flash Player. For now, it's not needed since there are not many sites that support it yet. It will not hurt to have it installed though. Time will tell how popular it becomes.

Shawn

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hey dmex

Thanks for the link :D

IE7Pro - The Ultimate Add-On for Internet Explorer

I'm just getting started with it
but so far so good.

Later Ted

 

[Krenath]

Downloaded and installed IE8. Sounded interesting, but I really didn't see all that much that had changed except it was slow as hell to render webpages. Uninstalled it.

Played with IE7Pro as well. Looks interesting though the YouTube resizer plugin doesn't work for me. The videos resize, sure, but they don't *play*. Other than that, it's awesome

 

[therock]

The new Firefox beta is really fast.
IE will not let me customize the tool bar. Takes up too much real-estate.
I was an IE man form years until Vista. Firefox now and not looking back.

 

[dmex]

Thats weird IE usually does let you customize it, anything we can do to help?

Hint: try IE7Pro

 

[Iskevosi]

Firefox is working fantastic for me. The new Beta is great.

 

[therock]

Thats weird IE usually does let you customize it, anything we can do to help?Hint: try IE7Pro

In IE of old I used to be able to have a bar across the top with the file menu and back arrows, home, stop, reload and an address line.
Now I have three bars. An address bar, a file menue bar, and a tab. IE of old would let me stretch, or thin them out and move them around. Gone!
I purchased a 21 inch display for me, not for MS.

Firefox I have a file menu bar with navigation buttons and a address bar in it. One line! Not another 1/2 inch of real-estate.Not an additional navigation or address bar.
A screen shot of IE with one bar across the top with navigation buttons (no text), address entry, and file commands would surprise me.

 

[Krenath]

In IE of old I used to be able to have a bar across the top with the file menu and back arrows, home, stop, reload and an address line.
Now I have three bars. An address bar, a file menue bar, and a tab. IE of old would let me stretch, or thin them out and move them around. Gone!
I purchased a 21 inch display for me, not for MS.

Yeah, that's something I reall miss. A thin bar across the top that does everything I want, not a fat one that does whatever some programmer at Microsoft thinks I want.

I dislike the fact that I can't put everything on the same line if I want to. Sure, maybe that doesn't give me lots of space for tabs, but if that's what I want, that's what I want and I want that more than I wanted tabbed browsing. But some guy at Microsoft throught that everyone would want tabs soo badly that they'd be willing to dedicate three times the screen space to a redesign to support it. Bah!

 

[grayprint]

Firefox is also my favorite browser. Stopped using IE about 4-5 years ago. Although I'm on it now because I'm on a new computer and am waiting for FF3 to get out of beta. Yes yes I can use FF2 but I'm too lazy to set it up and then set up 3.

I've also used Opera but found it to lag on certain pages that uses heavy scripts or java, not too sure. Firefox and IE did not have the issue and more sites work with firefox than opera.

Opera is probably more customizeable than firefox if you're not afraid to edit files. However I prefer FF because its basic until you add the extensions you want. My FF was customized to only have an address bar, tabs bar if I'm on more than 1 site, and a 1 button menu next to the address bar. Also the status bar. No buttons or anything else. Used mouse gestures to navigate or keyboard shortcuts. It was customized to be minimalist and functional. Added a search extension where I'd just have to type g "search text" and it would search google. Added as many search engines with those shortcuts as I wanted. Way more efficient than clicking the search bar and selecting a search engine.

Anyway, IE8 looks more or less the same as IE7 which I don't like but I prefer it over 6 for tabs. Lack of customizeability, brings nothing that I want that other browsers can, ugly. In other words, its not for me.

 

[Twist3d]

I don't even use IE. I will stick with my Firefox which I have grown to love and adore.

 

[pdeprez]

If you want to play with IE8 but don't want to install it, you can download a virtual hard drive with IE8 loaded from Microsoft (IE8_VPC.EXE). You'll need Virtual PC 2007 as well if you don't have it already.

(Virtual machines are also useful for visiting websites that you don't want to leave any trace of on your machine, if you get my drift)

 

[dmex]

Thanks pdeprez

 

[TommyK]

i've found its ok as long as you don't right click on anything.......... Popup's also seem to confuse it... Oh and highlight, it doesn't like that either. So as long as you don't do anything unexpected like drag your curser across the screen it works great.

 

[rajinisback]

The opposite of computing ain't it? Thought the computer is suppose to handle what I unexpectedly do

 

[TommyK]

The opposite of computing ain't it? Thought the computer is suppose to handle what I unexpectedly do

Hehe,

I've actually had to completely remove it, it crashed way to frequently when rendering pages, especially when a flash movie was embeded. Although it has adopted a firefox "Restore previous session" function, I think i'll wait to the general release before i try it again.