IE 8 Beta 2, Good and Bad?

So I've been testing the new IE 8 Beta 2 that Microsoft came out with and I'd have to say I like it. I have been a big Firefox fan for a long time now but I actually like the IE 8 better. It has many features built in to it that I like that I would have to download plugins for in Firefox. As far as security and privacy I've tested it by just randomly clicking through various porn and spyware infested sites and came out clean, got plenty of messages saying they sites were not safe also.

One of the things I like best about it is the inPrivate Browse option. With this it saves no cookies, history or cache and it's all cleared on exit. So when you're doing some browsing and you get a little paranoid or you just don't want your girlfriend or parents to find out what you've been doing it works great.

I also like their Accelerators. These link to things you do online all the time like say you're on a site and you want to blog about it, just highlight some text you want to quote and right click, then click on the Blog With option. You're not restricted to just using the Microsoft stuff also. When you setup IE 8 it asks you what you want to choose, and both MS and Google options are there. Accelerators also link with Email, Define, Find, Map and Translate.

IE 8 also has some nice enhancements to browsing and navigation options. For example they have a nice Compatibility button for sites that come up and look all out of place, (probably due to poor XHTML coding) it'll do a quick clean up and make it look better. Also one of my favorites is Linked Colored Tabs. So if you open a new tab from a link on the page it'll color code all the tabs that belong together and keep them next to each other to make it a little easier to find what you're looking for in the 15 tabs you have open. Oh and their Find on Page feature is a lot better and more like Firefox and not some 1990's popup search.

One thing that may just not really be used yet but so far seems pretty lame are the web slices. I mean really, do we need to have a little cutout page to look at in our favorites. Most likely if we're adding it to our favorites we know what it is or if we wanted to look up something on a page we'd just go to the page. Also the Ebay web slices don't auto update so that's about pointless.

Another thing is that they really haven't worked on their Favorites or History management. Even though they say Improved from previous versions. I can't tell the difference besides it pops out from the side differently.

And the last thing I really don't like about it is the Tab Recovery on load. There's no option, at least as far as I've noticed, to regain all the tabs from your last browser session. Sure you can go up to tools click Reopen Last Browsing Session, but that's one step I don't want to have to take. But it is at least an option this time around so it's just a minor annoyance.

By Sundance of Make Me a Sammich Games

Posted in: ie 8, internet explorer 8, review