The latest incarnation of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has now been released to the public. Let’s be honest, it has to be an improvement on what has come before.
The main feature of Internet Explorer 8 is the closer adherence to the internet standards like HTML, Javascript and CSS. On one hand this is good news and it will mean a lot less compatibility problems, but all those websites that had little codes and fixes to cope with the older browsers foibles might need a little work. There is a Compatibility View that makes IE8 act like IE7 for any sites that do display problems, but from the brief testing I have seen so far, any errors are on the sites themselves, rather than with the browser.
A definite bonus is the private browsing mode. This has been offered in Firefox and Safari for a while now, and it’s about time IE caught up. Selecting InPrivate Browsing from the Safety button will take you into the private mode. The session will then not retain any history or logs of your activities until you close the window.
Other new security functions are included such as the SmartScreen Filter and the Cross-Site Filter. The SmartScreen scans the page looking for malicious content, which sounds great, but we will have to wait and see if it works or not. It also references the page against a blacklist to see if it is legitimate or not.
The Cross-Site Scripting Filter is a neat sounding tool that scans a page for any code inserted into it maliciously. These can track movements, keystrokes and all sorts of naughtiness. Again we will have to wait a bit to see if it works or not.
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