Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft released Internet Explorer Version 8 in March 2009. Is it worth the upgrading from IE 7?  If you are still using IE6 or earlier then go ahead! Otherwise I'd wait a while until the bugs have been ironed out. That being said, I am using it on my computer and will install it on my clients. It is better than IE 7 in a number of ways. The download is 16MB.

I won't go through all the changes here but highlight the ones that I think are important.

• Accelerators. I don't like the name because (to me) it implies that it will speed up your Internet connection - it doesn't. It adds options to the context menu (right click) that will speed up your browsing - hence the 'acceleration. Despite its bad name this is a good thing and can only get better.
• Favourite Manager. No problems with this name! IE has always had a basic favourites manager and this is an improvement on this. My browser of choice is Firefox and up until a month ago I used Foxmarks to manage my bookmarks (favourites). I now use delicious which not only manages your favourites but makes them available wherever you are and uses a tagging system so that you can add each page to any number of groups.
• Compatibility View. This relates to the way that the pages are displayed. You may have noticed that some sites look different on different browsers. This is because every browser interprets the page in a different way. This feature allows you to change (improve) the appearance/layout of a page at a touch of a button.
• InPrivate Browsing. This is a feature that prevents websites leaving traces of themselves on the computer. These traces include history and cookie information. This feature has been available as an add-on to Firefox but is an integral part of IE8. This is ideal for keeping your private information private when using someone else's computers such as in Internet cafes.

All in all, IE8 is a marked improvement over IE7 and head and shoulders above IE6. It has learned from the best features of other browsers such as Firefox, Safari and Chrome and has unlearned the bad habits in its predecessors.

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