When Mozilla released late beta test versions of Firefox 3 earlier
this year, I quickly became enthusiastic about the open-source
browser.
Now, Microsoft has released the second beta of Internet Explorer 8,
the next version of its dominant Windows Web browser, and it’s being
touted as ready for consumer use. While I’m still not sure everyone
should rush to download it at http://www.microsoft.com/ie, it’s definitely
worth a look if you’re an Internet Explorer user and want a preview of
where this browser is headed.
There are some intriguing features in IE8. It’s a little faster than
IE7 but doesn’t match Firefox 3’s remarkable speed. It’s got a lot
more to protect you from the bad guys on the Web. And it makes it
easier to find what you’re looking for, and to quickly make use of
that information once you track it down.
• Standards compliance. Internet Explorer 8 is the most
standards-compliant browser Microsoft has produced. That’s good for
Web developers going forward, because they don’t have to worry about
tweaking their sites to account for IE’s quirks. However, in the short
term, the release of IE8 is going to cause users serious pain, because
sites that are designed to adjust for IE will do so, not realizing
that IE8 no longer needs that. The result: Broken and ugly Web pages.
Fortunately, there’s a nifty button next to the address bar that will
cause IE8 to display pages in the same way as IE7. It works well, and
that’s good, because I suspect you’ll be using it a lot at first.
• Smart Address Bar. The address bar in Firefox 3 is so good,
it’s been nicknamed the Awesome Bar. As you type, it searches a
database containing your history and bookmarks and comes up with
suggestions, based both on the Web address and the site’s title. It’s
my favorite feature in Firefox, and now there’s a similar
implementation in IE. Microsoft calls it the “smarter address bar,”
and it adds RSS feeds and search suggestions to the mix. It also fixes
a problem in Firefox’s version, because it sorts the results based on
their source. This makes it much easier to spot the result you want.
• Accelerators. I have mixed feelings about this feature, which
reminds me of the lame “Smart Tags” from Internet Explorer 4. In this
case, when you highlight text, an icon appears. Click it, and you can
map a location, define a word, translate a foreign language, blog
selected text and more. This uses a set of Web services which, by
default, are supplied by Microsoft. For example, the default mapping
service is Windows Live Maps, but you can change this to Google or
Yahoo if you prefer. This can save a few clicks, but the same thing
can be accomplished with some good bookmarks.
• Web Slices. This is similar in concept to the Web Clips
feature found in the Mac OS version of Safari, but not nearly as
useful. There, you can highlight an area on a Web page and turn just
that section into a widget available from the Mac’s Dashboard. In
this, you can highlight content on a page and it will show up in
detailed form in IE8’s search suggestions. But there’s a big caveat:
The Web site operator has to include code on its pages to make this
feature work. If your favorite sites don’t do this, it’s worthless to
you.
• InPrivate Browsing. Nicknamed “porn mode,” InPrivate Browsing
lets you surf the Web without generating a history of either your
searches or visited pages. There’s also a feature called InPrivate
Blocking that will block content on one site that’s being pulled in
from another. But blocking doesn’t start until the third-party site
delivers content with a high enough frequency. You can customize this
to always allow some sites to deliver content, and to always block
others. Both InPrivate Browsing and Blocking are turned off by
default. One you close your browser, it reverts back to standard
behavior.
• Crash Recovery. Firefox has long had the ability to restore
pages that were loaded when it crashes. In IE7, the browser restarts
after a crash, but only displays the home page. Now, IE8 restores all
open pages — but chances are, it won’t need to. That’s because
if a crash is caused by content on a site, it will only shut down that
page, not the whole browser.
• Better security.Microsoft has improved IE’s phishing filter to
also detect sites that might distribute malware. The Smart Screen
Filter will alert you if the site you’re about to visit is suspicious.
I usually turn off IE’s phishing filter because it seems to slow
browsing, but the Smart Screen Filter seems much faster. In fact, I
was unaware it was even on and functioning until I went to check its
settings. There’s also new support to detect and block Cross Site
Scripting attacks, a common method for exploiting browser
vulnerabilities.
• Improved search. As with both Firefox and IE7, a search box is
built into the IE8 that lets you choose from multiple search engines.
You’re now able to switch between engines quickly, which makes jumping
from a search on eBay to one on Amazon much faster. Searches here also
include the sites in your history and favorites, just as in the
smarter address bar. In addition, downloading a search plug-in for
participating engines enables visual search suggestions, including
images, charts and maps.
Microsoft says IE8 is feature-complete, so what you see in Beta 2 is
what you’ll get when the final version is released. It’s an impressive
upgrade, though I still prefer Firefox 3 for its speed, stability and
wide range of extensions and add-ons.
I’ve gone back and forth between IE and Firefox in the past, though,
and there’s a chance I may develop more fondness for IE8 once the
finished version is out.
When it comes to browsers, I’m fickle — I’ll use the best one,
regardless of whose name is on it. For now, that remains Firefox 3.