Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft released the highly anticipated Internet Explorer 8 browser today, causing quite a buzz across the blogosphere. I've been running IE8 since the first beta version was released a little over a year ago, and things have definitely come a long way since then. In my opinion, this is by far the best browser Microsoft has ever released. It couldn't have come at a better time, with IE's market share steadily slipping to competitors like Firefox and Safari.

Internet Explorer has long been much-maligned by competitors, developers, and the everyday Web browsing public alike. Slow load times, frequent crashes, incompatibility with common standards, and countless security vulnerabilities are among the failures perpetuated by IE time and time again. IE7 showed significant improvements over previous versions but still came up short in many areas.

Enter Internet Explorer 8. Jam packed with new features like Accelerators and Web Slices as well as a number of security enhancements including integrated clickjacking protection, InPrivate Browsing, and InPrivate Filtering, IE8 delivers where earlier releases couldn't. Microsoft has taken a great deal of heat in the past for its sometimes blatent disregard for standards compliance, infuriating the development community to no end. It appears that they have finally seen the light with IE8, adhering to common standards and delivering what they are claiming is the "most complete and correct implementation of CSS 2.1 available in any browser." They have also included a decent set of developer tools and a Compatibility View feature which renders webpages as they would in IE7.

When it comes to fast speeds, Internet Explorer has never really been in the conversation. Several alternate browsers have blown IE away in various benchmark tests over the years. Microsoft is looking to change that perception with IE8, even releasing results of their own internal speed tests which pit IE8 against the latest versions of Google Chrome and Firefox. Browser load times were measured on all three browsers against some of the Web's most popular sites, including YouTube and Facebook. In many cases, IE8 was either faster or almost as fast as the two competitors. I will be performing my own speed tests shortly, but these results combined with what I've seen so far using the browser myself are definitely promising signs.

About Web Browsers will have much more about Internet Explorer 8 in the coming days and weeks, so stay tuned! In the meantime, check out this visual walkthrough.