Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq” MSFT) is making available at 3pm EST today Beta 2 of its Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Web browser, promising end-users, developers and designers, more security, privacy, search and performance capabilities than ever before.
The company released Beta 1 of IE8 five months ago, but targeted it at Web developers and designers only. Now with Beta 2, Pete LePage, product manager of Internet Explorer developer division at Microsoft, said Beta 2 is being directed at anyone who wants to use it.
“IE8 is great for partners, developers, Web content creators, IT pros and for anyone who wants to play with cutting edge browser technologies,” LePage said.
LePage highlighted new search capabilities with the browser and noted various enhancements such as in IE8’s find bar. Now, when users search for something, the browser will search for and will highlight all of the word matches on the page, therefore making finding information that much quicker. IE8 also has now what Microsoft refers to as accelerators. LePage said IE8 ships with default accelerators that enable users to do quick and easy things with content.
“Say I have a street address,” LePage said, “I highlight the address and right click and I’ll get a small box that comes up with a map from Live Maps. This will show me directions or will give me a birds-eye-view. I can also click on the box and it will take me straight to the map.”
IE8 also offers Web slice capabilities that allow users to add desired sites with one simple click. For enterprises and channel partners, LePage said users can subscribe to Web slices to see what sales a certain company has on a particular item, to view the volume of stock that’s in the warehouse and so forth, depending on what Web slices the company makes available to users.
“It’s a real easy way to provide end-users with one-click access back to the Web site that you want,” LePage said. “A Web slice is the ability to take content that changes on a regular basis and being able to provide that information back to end-users.”
Security in IE8 was another focus for Microsoft, in that the company wanted to provide users with an end-to-end safe experience while on the Web. Now when on a specific page, IE8 will do domain highlighting where the Web site name is highlighted in the search bar, therefore making it easier for users to know whether or not they are on a phishing or other malicious Web site. For those who want even more privacy and security, Microsoft is introducing its InPrivate browsing functionality with Beta 2. When users click on the InPrivate tab, they can search for things on the Web without having the page they’ve visited or what they’ve searched for traced back to them or their computer.
LePage said Microsoft was also conscious of what IE would do when it experienced browser crashes in the past.
“When people are surfing the Web now and when IE crashes, the browser will bring back IE and the tabs the user had open before,” LePage said. “If it crashes again, IE will run each of those tabs in a separate process.”
With Beta 2 set for public download later today, LePage said it all depends on the feedback Microsoft receives about it, which will then determine when the final version of IE8 is released.
“It’s all about letting enterprises connect with their customers to give them the information they need really quickly, and allowing them to do their jobs,” LePage said. “The biggest value for channel partners is that they can now provide additional content to their users by using search providers, accelerators and Web slices.”