Entered CNET Catalog: 03/06/2008
SKU: CNETMSINTERNETEXPLORER8
Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 03/06/2008
Screenshots:
Internet Explorer 8 beta 1
Perhaps acknowledging its declining market share among Internet browsers, Microsoft is borrowing several popular features from Firefox and Safari in its release of Internet Explorer 8 beta 1. Although intended primarily for developers, the beta is public and should be used with caution.
We downloaded the 14.4MB file, then waited as Microsoft downloaded any missing Internet Explorer updates, checked for malicious code on our machine, and finally installed the browser. We then had to reboot. Our system crashed during the reboot and had to be manually restarted (but remember, this is a beta).
After restarting Windows, we were not prompted to do anything. Only after clicking on Internet Explorer did we find that Version 7 had been overwritten with Version 8 beta. A first-time-use wizard walked us through configuration and personalization. There's the Express Settings option, which accepts the settings from your previous Internet Explorer installation, and there's Choose My Settings. We chose Choose My Settings, and we were asked to:
- change default search engine (we kept ours Google)
- change Activity Providers (see below)
- enable Safety Filter (yes)
- make Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 your default (no)
- import settings from another browser (yes)
Activity Providers, according to Microsoft, are default pages for maps, encyclopedia information, and social networks. Accepting Microsoft's defaults puts you firmly within the Microsoft universe of Windows Live spaces: Blog with Windows Live Spaces, Define with Encarta, Translate with Windows Live, and send with Windows Live Hotmail. We chose not to install any of these. Later we found that Microsoft has partnered with Facebook, eBay, StumbleUpon, Yahoo, Windows Live, and MSN, and provides "activities" associated with each. By choosing StumbleUpon, for example, we found that we can set Internet Explorer to always check StumbleUpon for reviews of a Web page, for related content associated with a Web site, for up-to-the-minute feeds of popular sites, or StumbleUpon itself. If you check for more Activities, you will find a Page Not Found.
The Safety Filter exists in the latest release of Internet Explorer and is the antiphishing part of the browser. In Version 8, Microsoft adds malware prevention, actively scanning a downloading page for malicious content. Unlike other safe-surfing applications we've seen, Microsoft displays a warning. We think it might be better to flag the user, say, in a pop-up window. Efforts to find what Microsoft found objectionable were futile; you could either block the threat or allow it without ever knowing what "it" is.
When we typed in maps.google.com, Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 crashed. Fortunately, Microsoft has borrowed the Session Recovery feature from Mozilla Firefox. Dubbed Automatic Crash Recovery (ACR), the Microsoft feature only crashes the tab, not the whole browser, and attempts to restore the tab individually. Apparently Google Maps did not crash the page, but our Google Toolbar did. After several attempts to recover the page, Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 asked if we wanted to close the tab.
Another borrowed feature is Web Slices. At the moment, only a handful of sites offer slices, so it's hard to judge how well this works in the wild. Apple Safari has a similar feature, allowing you to create applets on your desktop with snippets from live Web sites. Microsoft isn't that ambitious, as the site snippets only work within the Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 browser.
If you load Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 and then decide you don't like it, you can click the Emulate IE7 button to return your browser to the look and feel of the current version. Check back to see our take on beta 2 and the final release expected later in 2008.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46out of 46 user reviews
Absolute joke
Pros: Nothing special
Cons: Crashes every minute
out of 46 user reviews
My computer to crash.
Pros: THERE ARE NONE!
Cons: Changed my computer settings, display, toolbar and caused my computer to crash.
out of 46 user reviews
Nice Browser
Pros: Fast, Nice new features, stable
Cons: eats more memory than I would like
out of 46 user reviews
Garbage - Don't use it.
Pros: Are you serious? Is there something positive about this software?
Cons: Prevents other software from functioning. If you use an audio/video editing program you may wish you never installed IE v8.
out of 46 user reviews
Not a Good Choice at All
Pros: It's still IE but that is where the Pro's end for me
Cons: Slow to load, has a tendency to not open after prolonged use of other browsers FireFox for example and has a tendency to crash with no warning. Oh No! another MS product that does this.
out of 46 user reviews
dont bother
Pros: nice features and options
Cons: made my whole PC slooooooow
out of 46 user reviews
Nightmare for Web Developers
Pros: Nice interface, some ok security things.
Cons: Contains some bugs on css and is not w3 compliant. No surprise there as Microsoft continue to do there own thing thumbing the developers arena as usual.
out of 46 user reviews
no svg or apng support just archaic animated GIF
Pros: colored tabs
Cons: IE8 Stinks. Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc.... all support modern animated files APNG and SVG..... and it still runs like a dog.
out of 46 user reviews
Slow...very, very slow.
Pros: none I can think of.
Cons: Really slow.
out of 46 user reviews
IE8 is a step backwards
Pros: None that I can find.
Cons: MS has broken the inline autocomplete and have added other annoying features. They have returned to the days of an unusable web browser when Netscape was king.
out of 46 user reviews
Complete waste
Pros: No Pros!!!!
Cons: Majority of sites do not open in IE 8. The reason given is connection issues, whereas the same site opens easily in Firefox
out of 46 user reviews
One star is too much!!!
Pros: Got some features already existing in safari and firefox natively or through addons
Cons: Slow to start
Crashes within seconds of visiting youtube.com
Interface looks same old.
Lacks taste...
I installed the latest release from Microsoft via the Windows Software Update. It crashed within a second of going to youtube.com. It offered to restart, but never restarted on selecting restart.
I am a Software Engineer myself....to be able to not capture a problem and instead offering to restart a software is an extremely bad practice and shows lack of technical skill. Compare it those days of Windows NT when we used to restart operating system for small configuration changes. If this thing happens once in a few months...it could be considered acceptable....but once every few minutes is unacceptable....This public release version is more like an Alpha release...
IE 8 is proving itself to be a total waste of time... to even try .....Stay put with your Firefox or Safari...Opera and Chrome are fine too...
out of 46 user reviews
I liked the beta version "no issues"
Pros: I like the favorites Bar. Being able to access the favorite like a toolbar nice.
Cons: Deletion of personal settings
out of 46 user reviews
Forget IE 8
Pros: Nothing worked
Cons: system crashed so went back to IE7 -
out of 46 user reviews
Can I give it a - star?
Pros: There is no benifit to downloading this crap !!!
Cons: It crashes more than my 5 year-olds paper airplane.
The only way to get a good microsoft program is for them to buy an already developed program from someone who has a clue. Very useless Bill.
Thanks for nothing!
out of 46 user reviews
Internet Explorer 8 SUCKS!!!!
Pros: Seriously, I can't think of one single good thing about IE8
Cons: After installing IE8, I clicked on my "e" icon to enter IE8....and I waited....and waited....and waited some more for Google to appear, with no avail. So I tried again and my computer crashed. This happened 4 times before I uninstalled it.
out of 46 user reviews
Yet another update for Internet Explorer! No thanks!
Pros: Absolutely Nothing other than possibly being "free"... but at what price?
Cons: MSIE is always playing catch up to the far superior Firefox browser by the Mozilla folks. Took them OVER a year to finally add tabs to the MSIE Browser.
Firefox is a much superior Internet Browser without all the BLOAT inheritant in MSIE!
Even Opera 9 is a much better less bloatware browser than Internet Explorer.
Perhaps one day, Internet Explorer might actually allow one the REAL controls that are in Firefox 3.0.7 already!
Too bad that we HAVE to use MSIE to do Windows Updates... Still underwhelmed by that!
This long time Software Developer (over 30 years) thinks that the team at Microsoft could get a real clue from Firefox and Opera on the User Interface and the behind the scenes executable code.
Too many security holes in ALL versions of MSIE to ever trust it as my main internet browser... and it takes Microsoft TOO long to fix the known issues.
>:(
out of 46 user reviews
Good - I Like it
Pros: Good Improvement, I like IE 8.
Compatibility View.
Tools for Developers.
Lots of new features.
Cons: Degubber is not as good as firebug or other debuggers.
Instillation needs restart.
Can be made more light and fast.
Looks can be more improved.
out of 46 user reviews
not even close to Firefox or Safari
Pros: Quick install. Looked good after installation. After crashing the computer three times it appeared to stabilize and worked pretty well.
Cons: Crashed computer completely on second webpage load. Crashed 2 more times shortly after reboot. Toolbars lack flexibility. Don't like search interface. No history menu option. Had to reinstall Netflix movie player. Had to reinstall Flash.
That is bs! The true Web Standards complaint web browser is Safari but web sites don't have to be designed around Safari. If they are compliant they simply work properly in Safari.
Meanwhile I did not see any real issues in browsing several of my website designs. One particular page that is primarily Ajax did display some layout issues that did not exist in IE7.
My biggest complaint is "where the heck is the history button?" I looked through all the menus and while the "delete history" menu option is prominent, I could not find a way to view browsing history. I even searched help and came up empty handed.
If MS wants to redesign their browser why not borrow heavily from Firefox and Safari? IE has never been a decent browser.
out of 46 user reviews
IE8 is much better than its predecessors
Pros: Better UI
Good-looking
Seperate Google Search toolbar, etc. not needed
Cons: Same old File Downloader (Slow & Single Connection Thread).
out of 46 user reviews
Piece of ****! It's too buggy.
Pros: Nothing at all.
Cons: I didn't like it. It is too buggy and It shouldn't have been released.
out of 46 user reviews
Still needs work
Pros: Smooth simple interface; tab navigation
Cons: Still freezes up like IE7, usually when tab navigating. Still crashes ("Not responding").
Geez! Microsoft -- could this be why you're losing market share and stock price.
out of 46 user reviews
CRASHED EVERYTHING, EVEN ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE
Pros: NONE. It's a nightmare.
Cons: EVERYTHING. Crashed my antivirus software, froze my computer...had to take battery pack out to turn off to reboot..Couldn't view any webpages. Crashed my desktop email app...It is very susceptible to viruses.
out of 46 user reviews
Launches for 1/2 second then crashes. Pain in the a$$.
Pros: Nothing so far.
Cons: Umm, it doesn't work. At all. I've been using PC's for 18 years. I know my way around this stuff.
out of 46 user reviews
Frustrating
Pros: Nothing...Nilch...Zip...Zero
Cons: Everything
out of 46 user reviews
Absolutely C**P
Pros: Useful search facility on pages and source code
Cons: Keeps crashing, when reading simple pages, reports scripting errors not found elsewhere, very slow, grabs tons of memory.
out of 46 user reviews
IE 8 beta 2 is a crap.
Pros: nothing much
Cons: COULD NOT CLOSE IT
out of 46 user reviews
AAARRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!
Pros: With Vista, nothing works, so I don't know the Pro's.
Cons: See "Bottom-line summary"
Updated on Sep 11, 2008I wish I would of done my homework and found these reviews before downloading. If you have Vista (WHICH TOTALLY SUCKS!), use FireFox3 Mozilla. It works MUCH better with crappy Vista.
out of 46 user reviews
Absolute waste of Money and Time
Pros: I didn't find anything worth to highlight
Cons: Same old glitch, trying to manipulate people by providing MS specific content providers to choose from.
I am not a Google fan but efter evaluating Chrome I would definitely recommend not to update with IE 8. It is just a waste of space. No improvement in speed, ease of use, look and feel or for that matter new features.
out of 46 user reviews
absolute rubbish
Pros: didn't like anything about it as it crashed my computer...
Cons: didn't like anything about it as it crashed my computer...
out of 46 user reviews
Does not support embedded fonts!
Pros: Nothing so far.
Cons: Does not support embedded fonts (@font, EOT files)
out of 46 user reviews
This browser was nothing but trouble pc froze everytime I used it.
Pros: could not find any
Cons: Computer freezes up, very slow
out of 46 user reviews
Am I browser-control tab-challenged?
Pros: allows latest flash imaging
Cons: Same old, same old rigid over-control
out of 46 user reviews
good program
Pros: in ie7 mode seems to be quicker on surfing
Cons: system crashed first install
out of 46 user reviews
Needs work, especially JavaScript support
Pros: Familiar interface, interesting new features, Good debugger for developers
Cons: Some JavaScript not working... even in Hotmail folders
out of 46 user reviews
Crippled some Yahoo! mail functions
Pros: Close all tabs warning now lets you choose to close the current tab
Cons: Had problems composing with Yahoo! Mail (see below). Not impressed by new interconnectivity features for specific web sites.
out of 46 user reviews
Not That Great...Yet
Pros: Webslices are fantastic. Activities are developing into a really helpful feature.
Cons: Activites are incomatable with almost every non-microsoft service such as Blogger or AOL Mail
out of 46 user reviews
The Vista of Browsers
Pros: Added some security. Able to revert back to IE 7 with ease.
Cons: Slower. Uses twice as much memory as IE 7. Does not render pages correctly.
While Firefox is working on reducing the amount of memory it uses in its next version, Microsoft doesn't seem concerned, with 125MB in Mem Usage with only one page open (i.e., no tabs in use).
I tried opening some specialized Yahoo pages that require IE to work, and the spacing was all off. This was not unique, as this problem affected about 10% of the sites I viewed.
The Slices and Activities were somewhat interesting, although certainly not compelling. Most of the other features were catch-ups to Firefox 2, which will be superseded in the next couple of months with a new version.
The bottom line is that Microsoft has a long way to go before getting IE 8 to be a compelling upgrade. That's why, at least for now, it joins Vista in the "Microsoft software you don't need" categegory.
out of 46 user reviews
needs some work
Pros: none that i saw yet
Cons: slower browsing, messed up pages if not emulating 7
out of 46 user reviews
Still needs work
Pros: When I find one, I'll know!
Cons: There are a few.
out of 46 user reviews
Always trying to catch up
Pros: Nothing really
Cons: Same old Microsoft
out of 46 user reviews
what'wrong here?
Pros: the options
Cons: does not show the website you wanted
out of 46 user reviews
Vamosi is wrong again ... shocker
Pros: Activities save time, webslices promote microformats, faster than IE7 with emulate button down
Cons: Slow rendering in IE8, many websites still sending css formatted for older versions of IE
Vamosi is wrong in a couple of areas here 1. Quote - "Another borrowed feature is Web Slices". Webslices and apple's webclip are different in design and philosphy. Apple wants to make widgets that are disconnected from the browser, cause a whole page navigation in the background, and runs script which is dangerous (isn't he suppose to be a security guy). Webslices are in the browser, give status updates like RSS, promote microformats, and doesn't run script.
2. Quote - "If you check for more Activities, you will find a Page Not Found."
Incorrect sir, maybe you should check this still before publishing your article.
3. Quote - "Efforts to find what Microsoft found objectionable were futile". How can you trash talk how Microsoft notifies the user of malware if you could find any?
Its fairly obvious that Vamosi does not like Microsoft, but please keep it to your blog.
out of 46 user reviews
Not bad needs work!
Pros: A few nicw features added.
Cons: Beta is a couple steps back from IE7.
IE8 has a few quirks such as, some pages don't properly render, some graphics and fonts can be a little fuzzy. Also some pages that are heavy on Ajax and CSS make IE8 a little confused although most flash stuff seems to work ok. Robert Vamosi mentioned google maps crashed their version of IE8, stragely google maps worked fine for me although it was a little slow to render the pages.
IE8 seems about as fast as IE7 but a little heavy on the resources but not much more than IE7 or FF. MS needs to catch up because the latest beta version of FF is alot faster in all areas than IE8. Although I'm sure the final version of IE8 will have things ironed out and running smoothly.
Windows update does not work with IE8 as of a few minutes ago. Also if you try IE8 and don't like it you can just click the "Emukate IE7" button on IE8 and it will work like IE7 after a browser restart.
out of 46 user reviews
Sites adjusting for IE7 Messing up IE8 (beta 1)
Pros: Standard complient mode is default
Cons: Sites that work around IE7 suddenly fail for IE8
While the browser passes the Acid 2 test, I personally did find it failing on a CSS 2.1 test in the W3C test suite. Hopefully MS will run through the test suite again before the final release.
By the time of release most websites should be at a point where they have removed those adjustments they made for IE7 when IE8 is detected
out of 46 user reviews
So far, a little trouble
Pros: Not as bad, as I thought it would be
Cons: None, its a experiment in progress
