IE8 goes RC1

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 27 January 2009 06:51

IT Industry - Development

Work at Microsoft on Internet Explorer 8 has reached the stage that the company has revealed Release Candidate 1 to the general public.

Internet Explorer 8 has been in beta for the best part of a year. The program is now "platform complete" according to Microsoft general manager Dean Hachamovitch - which means that while there may be some changes before the browser is finally released, it will behave in the same way that RC1 does.

Among the security features of IE8 are its privacy mode (InPrivate Browsing, which avoids storing browser history, form data, cookies and other information), warnings that a site has been reported as unsafe, and a cross site scripting filter.

Another important security feature is protection against clickjacking - a trick that can fool users into clicking buttons that aren't part of the page they think they are viewing.

Microsoft claims IE8 is faster than its predecessor in terms of launching, opening pages, and running JavaScript.

JavaScript performance is probably less important to Microsoft than other browser developers, as the company is pursuing a "software plus services" strategy as opposed to the out-and-out cloud model used by Google and Salesforce.com, for example.

Other improvements in IE8 are said to include a smart address bar (not everyone's favourite, but it seems to be the way browsers are going), better zooming, restriction of website problems to the affected tab (not the entire window or browser), visual search (incorporation of images in search results), and web slices (a server-driven feature to deliver frequently-updated information).

What else is new in IE8? See page 2.