AfterDawn: Tech news

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 8

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Mar 2009 5:39 User comments (32)

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 8 Microsoft has announced the mass availability of their popular browser Internet Explorer 8 today, hoping the new safer, faster browser will help the company win back some market share it has been slowly losing.
“Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser — safety, speed and greater ease of use,” added Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match.”

The updated browser has been in beta since January and Microsoft says they have taken feedback from "millions of customer sessions."

Microsoft says IE8 "blocks two to four times more malware attacks than other browsers," including Firefox and Safari.



Additionally, the software giant says IE8 is "one of the fastest browsers on the market today," beating out other browsers fifty percent of the time on page loading tests.

According to the press release IE8 also adds the following:

Accelerators. Accelerators make it faster and easier to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Users can simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, or share it.

Web Slices. Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever someone goes on the Web.

Visual search suggestions. The Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 enables rich, real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people’s own Favorites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information that saves time.


The updated browser is available in 25 different languages; Arabic, Chinese (Traditional, Simplified and Hong Kong), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Download Internet Explorer v8.0 from AfterDawn.com

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32 user comments

119.3.2009 17:54

Hooray, hope it supports IEPro

Quote:
Microsoft says IE8 "blocks two to four times more malware attacks than other browsers," including Firefox and Safari.
inb4 FireFox Defense Squadron

219.3.2009 18:01

I doubt that anything like 2x to 4x is accurate even more coming from Microsoft. Still sticking with Chrome if I want speed + security. IMO Microsoft should leave making browsers to Mozilla and Google.

319.3.2009 18:18

Can't wait. Downloading it now.

419.3.2009 18:24

giving it a test drive as well!

519.3.2009 19:44

Dear Fat Sweating Slug who bounces up and down on stage like a demented drunken hobbit who has spilt his pint in the Green Dragon ( aka Steve Balmer ) (aka Steve Jabba Balmer )
- all I want is a version of internet explorer that actually works well with Vista ( over 2 years is a bit too long to wait ) - an end to the spinning donuts, frozen screens and "internet explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close " and "Windows is checking for a solution" ( followed by no solution ) - an end to all that is what is required.

Considering you are so grotesquely overweight and clinically obese , maybe you could eat all the spinning donuts yourself for lunch and take them ( and your own immense bulk ) completely out of circulation for good ?

until that happens and I hear you have done it and exploded all over Seattle, I'll stick to firefox , thanks.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 19 Mar 2009 @ 7:46

619.3.2009 19:46

Originally posted by domie:
Dear Fat Sweating Slug who bounces up and down on stage like a demented drunken hobbit who has spilt his pint in the Green Dragon ( aka Steve Balmer )
- all I want is a version of internet explorer that atually works well with Vista ( over 2 years is a bit long to wait ) - an end to the endless spinning donuts, frozen screens and "internet explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close " and "Windows is checking for a solution" ( followed by no solution ) - an end to all that is what is required.

Considering you are so grotesquely overweight and clinically obese , maybe you could eat all the spinning donuts yourself for lunch and take them ( and your own immense bulk ) completely out of circulation for good ?

until that happens and I hear you have done it and exploded all over Seattle, I'll stick to firefox , thanks.




Dido

The bad thing is you still have too keep IE on the computer because some web sites like Windows update don't let you use FF The wankers.

We all know IE is a lost cause.

I will never switch back too IE and I Have not used it since 7 and didnt like that and IE 6.


What is IE pro
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 19 Mar 2009 @ 7:50

719.3.2009 20:10

I thought there was a plug in for firefox to let you access windows update ?
Good news is that in the next operating system "Windows 7", there is an option to turn off internet explorer completely.
Windows 7 is so much smoother and faster than Vista.

819.3.2009 20:14

Originally posted by domie:
I thought there was a plug in for firefox to let you access windows update ?
Good news is that in the next operating system "Windows 7", there is an option to turn off internet explorer completely.
Windows 7 is so much smoother and faster than Vista.

Are you kidding Windows 7 is like ME that was a butch added stuff on top of 98.

W7 is a bunch of stuff added to Vista and we all know vista sucks we all know this for awhile.

I have tried the beta but I know there are things that will change.

Maybe when the full release is out it will be good.

919.3.2009 21:11

Quote:
What is IE pro

I don't know how to use that googly thing either.

1019.3.2009 21:58

Originally posted by domie:
I thought there was a plug in for firefox to let you access windows update ?

Try this?...
http://windizupdate.com/

1119.3.2009 22:00

just tried ie8 on my xp pro x86 machine and IE8 decided to murder my pc half the pc didnt work and the sites IE8 loaded were weird and all out of place im use to testing beta and alpha stuff im currently using firefox 3.6 alpha and the funny thing is its way more stable and faster than IE8 or IE7

IE8 couldnt even load google properly the search bar was so tiny while the rest of it was right...heavily unhappy with IE8

my pc isnt even 3 months old yet so i know my OS is fine...

took a bit to fix but gave me something to do hope you all have fun with Intershit blooper :D

1219.3.2009 23:51

Quote:
Originally posted by domie:
I thought there was a plug in for firefox to let you access windows update ?

Try this?...
http://windizupdate.com/


It made my FF crash twice when i tried the scan for updates.

And yes I know how too use the googly thing but your a real riot.

1320.3.2009 03:05

Quote:
Originally posted by domie:



What is IE pro
It's misspelled,he means IE7 Pro & i agree it better be able to work with IE8,can't really give details on how good it is other than life without it ain't worth live'n,ok so a bit over the top but yeah it's pretty good


http://www.ie7pro.com/

1420.3.2009 03:06

The Firefox extension that you are talking about is called IE tab. You can find it here. It allows you to view the current page like it would appear in Internet Explorer.

1520.3.2009 04:02

Does anyone know if they solved the DVDShrink issue?

1620.3.2009 04:51

Ahhh the FF defense squad, a team of wannabe IT managers and experts. We use FF because its either "faster" or more "secure" then IE doesnt lock up our computers doesnt blue screen blah blah the list goes on and on. Does anyone here actually work in the industry? Dont come out with your bullshit lies either 99% of industry programs designed for specific work places ONLY work with IE.

A few simple facts.

FF has more vulnerabilities then both IE and Chrome, don't belive me look it up. Actualy after just checking IE8 has NO thats right NO unpatched vulnerabilities.

http://www.securityfocus.com

Faster? Up to the end user and there configuration, net speed etc. Alot of depending factors. Out of the box IE8 is faster then FF for me along with chrome.

Im not here to rain on Firefox or bag the browser, just to state some simple facts that seem to be ignored by the ignorant. IE8 has had vulnerabilities and will of course get more in its time but because of patch tuesday amoung other things it has NO holes at the present. Anything that is found is usually patched within days 90% of the time before the exploits even released to public.

Im not saying firefox doesnt get patched but it has numerous holes at the moment many of them critical (check the mozilla website). Patching can take up to a few months.

This isnt FF vs IE6 anymore. Times have changed.

1720.3.2009 05:15
varnull
Inactive

Who rattled your cage?

I wouldn't use IE EVEN IF it was available for my platform.. which thankfully it isn't

It isn't standards compliant.. and any business which writes webpages and applications which only work with IE and are therefore also not standards compliant are doomed to go down when M$ do.

Anyway.. as reported above.. it doesn't work.. just like XP and fists.. broken by design lmfao!

1820.3.2009 10:18

Ater a lot of buggering about with downloading updates restarting and installing ie8, finally gave it a go.My canon web printing programs wouldnt work with it, and i saw a slowdown in my graphics performance, no advantages over previous explorers and a lot of bloated wind about accelerators that are only applicable to a waffle of applications.Yet again another piece of crap.Needless to say that it was uninstalled, and im back to ie6.Which is still faster than firecrap and opera.Dont bother with ie8, maybe ie9 will be worth it

1920.3.2009 11:45

i've just uninstalled it and gone back to IE7 as keep getting messages on launching IE8 that it's incompatible with some of my add-ons (which work fine with IE7) and that IE8 may crash (which it did).

2020.3.2009 12:26

Quote:
Hooray, hope it supports IEPro


it doesn't support ie7 pro - as i found out.
you'll have to wait for ie8 pro i suppose.
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 20 Mar 2009 @ 12:27

2120.3.2009 13:09

Oh well maybe better luck with IE9

http://www.itproportal.com/security/news...already-hacked/

Think i,ll stick with Firefox

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 20 Mar 2009 @ 1:10

2220.3.2009 13:41

Originally posted by consul:
Oh well maybe better luck with IE9

http://www.itproportal.com/security/news...already-hacked/

Think i,ll stick with Firefox
There might not be an IE9. Rumor has it that IE8 is the last.

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/10/1942232

2320.3.2009 14:40

Hey Fordsrule you said your using Firefox 3.6, there is only Firefox 3.1 beta 3!
And even though Internet Explorer 8.0 locks up on and all, Firefox locks up also. So take it for grain of salt, No web browser is perfect no matter how much anyone whines....

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 20 Mar 2009 @ 2:42

2420.3.2009 15:00

I read somewhere not long ago, that they were gonna bag IE! And that they were gonna build Firefox into the Windows 7 OS! I forget where I read that, but if FF is really so vulnerable, is that really a good idea(ehh, im sure they would work that out)? By the way, I thought IE8 was pretty stable on Windows 7. Quite the opposite on Xp though. ehhh...it was built for 7 originally.

Wow, its like it was just a rumor! I cant find it anywhere now.

2520.3.2009 16:12

Originally posted by fordsrule:
just tried ie8 on my xp pro x86 machine and IE8 decided to murder my pc half the pc didnt work and the sites IE8 loaded were weird and all out of place im use to testing beta and alpha stuff im currently using firefox 3.6 alpha and the funny thing is its way more stable and faster than IE8 or IE7

IE8 couldnt even load google properly the search bar was so tiny while the rest of it was right...heavily unhappy with IE8

my pc isnt even 3 months old yet so i know my OS is fine...

took a bit to fix but gave me something to do hope you all have fun with Intershit blooper :D
Yeah I learned this lesson with IE 3.0 Beta. I had 2.0 and the 3.0 beta was out, so I decided to try it out. You know, I was just thinking "Hey, it's just a web browser, not like it can screw up my system or anything. If it doesn't work right I'll just uninstall it."

Really though, how many programs do you install that screw up your whole computer when they don't work? So far it's only been IE 3.0 beta, and DirectX 5. My dad did recently try the IE 8.0 Beta and the same thing happened to him.

Right now I'm at the point where "faster" loading web pages don't matter to me. They all load within 2 seconds at most anyway. And security isn't that big of a deal. Those days of going to a random porn site and then when you try to close it, you have 10 more pop-ups popping up for the next 5 mintues are over. The days of discovering a lot of porno shortcuts on your desktop after visiting a porn site are over. The days of getting an assload of spyware randomly installed on your pc by just going to a random webpage are over. Thanks Firefox.

2620.3.2009 22:05

Just some more crap from M$. I just installed today on a co-worker's machine and after less than 10 mins of using it... I was asked to remove it. Funny...it's less compatible with the Internet than the last version.

No Thanks... Stickin' with the Fox!

2720.3.2009 23:22

I prefer Firefox as I can add many new things to it with extensions. It's much more customisable.

2821.3.2009 00:26

www.getfirefox.com

2921.3.2009 00:45

Wow! Where to start?

Varnull: 100% agree. IE6 wasn't compliant with PNG transparency. A lot of CSS stuff is broken too. I suffer even worse on my old Mac OSX 10.2, where I have IE4 for Mac long before Safari came out (and is incompatible.)

IE7Pro is a group of functionality add-ons for IE7 that makes it "close" to FF, such as session management and bookmark syncing. However, if you polish a turd, it's still... a turd!

Quote:
Microsoft says IE8 "blocks two to four times more malware attacks than other browsers," including Firefox and Safari.
So how can IE8 block more malware? Is there a subscription based add-on for IE, like AdBlockPlus in FF? MS can't even get Windows Defender to block or REMOVE malware, so my faith in IE8 is little to none.

All of that "Wannabe IT Manager" banter from the above post got me thinking. You are hosed using IE as long as it's still tied to that little pain in the neck known as ActiveX. IE also uses "install on demand" which of course is now that "yellow bar" the comes up with warnings, which is more annoying than it is useful.

Also guess what? Most apps that are designed to work with IE, ESPECIALLY the corporate environment you are talking about, fail to work properly when a new IE is released. It took our company almost an entire year to get patches that allowed us to upgrade to IE7 from IE6. Invalid security tickets, invalid pages, and the list goes on and on. We had to tweak the pop-up blocker for one app, and fix compatibility with Java. Oh, and what if the site is outside of the set security level or zone? What if that said zone is set by group policy? Do you want to open up the flood gates to get one app, that was written for IE, to work? Varnull hit the nail on the head: non-compliant!

The only way IE is "safe" in a corporate environment is if you have a state of the art firewall in place, and end users have restricted web access. The minute you take a PC, such as a laptop offsite, it is usually infected with spyware and trojans, like Antivirus 2009. We'll see how IE8 fares...
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 21 Mar 2009 @ 12:48

3021.3.2009 10:13

For the other comment above about Windows 7 being the next "ME" you are so wrong. Vista is clearly the bomb that ME was. 7 brings some new features to the table that are useful instead of counter productive as they were with Vista.

Not to mention that 7 doesn't need a hotrod of a system to run either. Check out the one forum here on AD and see the systems that some of us like myself and Omegaman have gotten 7 to run on (and not just barely run) and maybe that will change your mind.

3122.3.2009 09:10

I'm sure the sweaty Ballmer wrote that IE8 blurb with a crayon in his mouth from his padded cell. Only a lunatic would recommend Internet Explorer these days.

3229.3.2009 14:43

Ballmer is a graphic example why M$ only puts out crap. With guys like that running the show, they are going to keep putting out worthless everything.

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