Windows Internet Explorer is the name of a web browser developed by Microsoft Company from 1995 until nowadays. In the first stage of development the product was called Microsoft Internet Explorer. The users change it’s name in IE because is a very short name. IE was the most used Internet browser from 1995 until 2003. In 2002 was launched a new version, called IE5 and in 2003 Internet Explorer 6. The percent of penetration on the browser’s market was about 95% until the end of 2003.
Internet Explorer 8 is the latest product developed by the Microsoft giant to be the successor of another powerful web browser: IE7. The 8 version was launched in 2009 and was included in the new Windows XP SP3, Windows Server (2003 and 2008), Vista (all versions) and the new Windows 7.
Internet Explorer 8 is able to run on 32 and 64 bit Operating Systems and it has improved and interesting new features. The new IE8 is able to offer more security, RSS reader capacity, improvement CSS (cascade style sheets) reading and is very easy to use.
The first stage of Internet Explorer 8 starts in 2006. Until 2008, in February, the development of this new web browser was accelerated and the Beta1 version of IE8 was presented to the general public. The developers participates with different ideas and improvements and this thing is visible in the final product. From March until August 2008, the MSDN team decides to introduce and develop two new useful features in IE8 Beta. The new features are WebSlice and Activities.
However, in August 2008 Microsoft launch the Beta 2 version of IE8. The product was very well reviewed by the soft review companies. In this development period was introduced InPrivate System a new very useful feature, the equivalent of Private Browsing by Mozilla Firefox, one of the competitors on the browsers software market.
All Beta versions of Internet Explorer 8 are able to run under 32 and 64 bits without any problem. The Beta versions can be installed on Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista (all versions) and the new Windows 7 Operating System. The Beta 1 cannot be installed on Windows 7.
Internet Explorer 8 is full of new useful features. The most important characteristics and abilities of IE8 presented in this review, are:
- InPrivate Module – this new introduced feature is a major improvement added to this web browser. The previous version called IE7 doesn’t have a Private Navigation Mode and this thing as a little be outdated comparing with all the major competitors (Mozilla, Opera and Safari Browser). However, the new introduced capacity is very powerful, safe and secure.
- Suggested Websites – this feature was introduced to increase the speed of information obtaining. The Suggested Websites modules works in this way – a secured connection to the Microsoft’s servers provide you the most appropriate content, similar with your performed searches. This mode is not able to run with InPrivate mode activated. The personal data are not stored in any way by Microsoft.
- Authenticated Feeds and Web Slices – the Web Slices are short portions from a web page which a computer user can subscribe. The saved Slices will be saved in the browser’s bar and you can access anytime the updated version of a saved snippet. The new IE8 is able to read without any problems almost all types of feeds, including authenticated feed.
- Accelerators – accelerators are a new form of search and selection, without using of keyboard. The accelerators helps you to access different online services (like Google Earth or Wikipedia, for example) just with using of mouse and without left away the visiting page. These shortcuts are very useful if you need to find fast some info.
- Developer tools – IE8 introduces a new concept of debugging, integrated directly in the browser. Other competitors doesn’t have this possibility and you must download and install some addons if you want to allow CSS and HTML debugging. You are able to access all the code, separated in two menus for HTML language and CSS code.
- Improved Security – the most important thing of IE8 is improved security. Previous versions was a little bit weak at this chapter but in the new version, the security is powerful and complete.
Other features included in the new Internet Explorer 8 are: Autocomplete Changes, Favorites Bar, Smart Screen Filter, Zooming ability and Automatic Crash recovery system.
Internet Explorer 8 cannot be used normally on non PC’s but with Crossover module you can try to install the software on Mac. However, this version was not made to work on Mac computers and it’s better to install an old IE version. Internet Explorer 5 works very well on Mac, for example and you can download the package and install with Crossover module activate, and to use on your Mac OS X Operating System.
If you want to download and install the new Internet Explorer 8 you can access the Microsoft page. You should know that to can install and use IE8 on you computer, you must have an active genuine license. We don’t recommend to use or upgrade your computer until you don’t have a valid genuine license for your Windows Operating System.
Internet Explorer 8 can be downloaded and installed from here. You can choose your language if you don’t like the default English. IE8 is available in several local and international languages.