Internet Explorer 8 Set to Launch

Faced with a slow, downward spiral in the market share of Internet Explorer, Microsoft will launch its latest version of the browser, Internet Explorer 8 on Thursday.

The announcement was made at the MIX09 conference in Las Vegas for Web developers and designers as well as by press release, which noted that downloads of the final version of the new browser will be available starting at 9:00 AM PDT on March 19th, in 25 languages.

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft said:

"Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser — safety, speed and greater ease of use. With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match."

This version of Internet Explorer is more standards-compliant. Ironically, this breaks many sites which had been written with the vagaries of older IE versions in mind. To get around this issue, Microsoft has added a compatibility mode, which uses both a preset, updateable list of sites requiring compatibility mode as well as manual activation of the setting.

Based on that fact, it could in fact be less "easy to use," if users run into a number of incompatible sites that aren't already noted in the preloaded list.

• Accelerators. Accelerators make it faster and easier to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Users can simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, share it, or more.
  

• Web Slices. Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever someone goes on the Web.
  

• Visual search suggestions. The Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 enables rich, real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people’s own Favorites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information that saves time.

• In-Private Browsing. AKA "porn mode,"this keeps you from leaving your fingerprints around the Web as you browse the Internet.

Although Microsoft has tried to downplay the relative speed deficiencies of Internet Explorer 8 vs. some of the latest versions of its competitors, such as Firefox, Safari, and Chrome, it's true that most testing has shown IE8 to be feature-rich, and performance poor, meaning it's far slower than the others.

Thing is, slower in benchmarks doesn't mean perceptibly slower. On the other hand, I love my Firefox extensions, which keep me from moving to Chrome, and I'll use Internet Explorer only when necessary.

Still, the browser will have a major advantage over other browsers: Internet Explorer is built-into the OS, and will be in Windows 7, although there is an "off-switch" in Windows 7.

This relatively new option is likely a response to the European Union, which has said that it is considering sanctioning Microsoft for bundling a Web browser into its OS, a move that it says appears to violate EU antitrust law.

Watch a video from the WSJ's Walt Mossberg about the new browser: