IE 8 : Internet explorer 8

Well, wherever your browser allegiances lie, IE8 is still a very important release and developers have to know what to expect from this new browser.The current IE beta is pretty unstable, almost unusable so I wouldn’t really recommend giving it a spin just for interest’s sake. The following guide is what you can expect from the final version.Whilst researching this I was surprised about the number of changes being made with the next Internet Explorer. I guess I’ve become accustomed to the incremental releases from most developers, or perhaps the Firefox 3 release which essentially brought very little new to the browser… just greatly improved existing performance and enhanced functionality.Actually, before I do, here is an image of a mock-up for IE using the new Office Ribbon interface. This has been discarded, but it’s interesting to see ideas the developers have been playing around with:

User Interface

I don’t know how well this would have worked, but I think I’m glad it was rejected. Great though the ribbon is for applications like MS Office, for browsing small and sleak is much much better.

So in beta 1 you won’t find many changes in the UI, but you can expect a few more to appear for the final release, the idea was to keep navigation and toolbars as ‘thin’ as possible vertically; somewhere around the 120 pixels mark.Additionally the menus and interface will be a little more customisable, readjustments of existing tools for better exposure and a dedicated Firefox style addons interface.

Standards

There can be nothing more frustrating to a web developer then cross-browser support. I’m not going to go into detail on the so-called “browser wars”or the patchy standards support of Internet Explorer. You know all this, if you don’t then Wikipedia is a great place to start.

Internet Explorer 8 is Microsoft’s first real attempt for complete standards support. This could of course cause huge issues with pages coded for IE6 and 7, so Microsoft has made it pos

sible for web developers to place a meta tag on their site, so a IE8 browser displays the site in IE7 mode.This is the single most important change in IE8, and one you will probably not even notice if you’re not a developer. Expect some uproar across the web as webpages are broken, but with time it’ll settle down.

security

A bit less interesting, but even more important is the security changes. Internet Explorer 7 was a major step in terms of security, and IE8 continues that even more so. Key security changes include:

SmartScreen Filter

Essentially the improved Phishing filter of IE7.

Domain Highlighting
Malicious websites often use long domain names to confuse people into thinking they are on a different website. Domain highlighting exposes the domain name, and if IE detects the site is unsafe, turns the whole address bar red to bring a your attention to the fact.

More Secure ActiveX Controls
Further changes have been made to ActiveX to prevent malware being loaded onto a users computer. Even if it is installed by a user it be prevented from installation. Exceptions have been built in for trusted controls such as Microsoft, Adobe and Apple. Data Execution Prevention has also been turned on by default in IE8.

Activities:

Activities are Microsoft’s answer to Firefox’s extensions, although IE can also run extensions. Paul Thurrott explains exactly what these activities features are:

WebSlices:

Interestingly Webslices where a technology intended for Internet Explorer all the way back in 1996–7. Web Slices are part-widget, part RSS feed. Personally I don’t find it a particularly exciting addition to IE, but it may be different in practice.

Essentially you can take a ‘screenshot’ of a page which then updates dynamically and can be viewed without loading up the whole site again.

Developer Tools and Changes

Aside from standards compatibility IE8 also includes developer tools right into the browser like Firefox does. It has also improved Ajax support, meaning that the navigation buttons can be used be Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) to go to the previous task without navigating back to the previous page.

There are also a lot of general performance improvements.