microsoft launces IE8

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), the latest version of Microsoft Corp's browser, is finally available, bringing with it improvements in the areas of security, performance, ease of use and tighter adherence to World Wide Web Channel standard.

For years, Microsoft kept its own IE rendering engine that forced developers to build separate versions of webpages for IE and other browsers.

To make sure old pages optimized for IE6 or IE7 won't break when viewed in IE8, Microsoft introduced a "compatibility View" icon that users could click on to facilitate viewing of the old websites. By inserting a specially crated "meta" element into the webpage, IE8 triggers the old standards mode, emulate its behavior and show the old pages unscramble.

IE8 also behaves much differently from former versions, thanks to new features such as Accelerators, WebSlices, visual search suggestions, and Smart address Bar, among others. Accelerator is a form of selection based search that helps users reduce the number of clicks and navigation time to get to the online information they want. Users can simply right-click a word or phrases and instantly map, e-mail or share it. Accelerators are designed to help people go from Point A to Point B fast . It's an open platform for people to create their own scenarios. It is XML and CSS (cascading style sheet)based and can be crated in minutes.

Another tool in IE8 designed to maximize user's productivity online is the so-called WebSites, which makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo!mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever the user goes on the Web. It's the Web in a more condensed format. The technology is RSS that fetches the information needed. The RSS in IE8 can go out on the Web and fetch the information and pull it into the browser in a way that is formatted for he end users.

For users' privacy and security, IE8 contains new tools to guarantee both. First, there's the InPrivate Browsing which helps prevent a user's browsing history, temporary Internet files, form data, cookies and usernames and passwords from being retained by the browser, leaving no trace of browsing or search history. The privacy features of IE8 give users visibility and control over who they want to share information with. Users can selectively remove certain sites from their browsing history while preserving their favorite sites.

To protect IE8 users from malicious malware, phishing and other dangers, IE8 introduces a SmartScreen Filter that warns users when the sites or files they are attempting to open area potentially unsafe. If the SmartScreen filter detects a malicious website, IE8 will automatically step on the brakes and block the entire site. IE8's malware filter analyzes the software from sites and block it during download or suggests that you don't download it. IE8 can also stop "cross-site scripting" and "click-jacking" IE8's built-in, cross site scripting filter can detect these types of attacks and disable the harmful scripts. Phishing sites are immediately flagged as phishing sites. IE8 has an extremely low false alarm rate as they have the technology to scan pages and detect which are phishing sites and must be automatically flagged. IE8 malware filter can also automatically block pervasive sites or pop-ups. IE8 also works separately from the rest of the operating system so, for instance, a hacker gets control of the browser the computers Operating System, registry and file system remain sandboxed. IE8's crash recovery system promises that if a single website or tab crashes, it should not crash the whole browser. this capability is called Tab Isolation wherein each tab functions independently and runs its own internal processes. This means closing a tab will only affect that particular tab, allowing the user to continue with only minimal disruption.