Recently Microsoft has already announced IE8. In comparison with Beta 1 & 2 release, the RTM is packed with features and functionality aimed at the home & business users and as well as for IT Professionals and Developers too. IE8 is still under development and may contains bug issues, So its not ready for day to day use and web development environment. But apart from all these things, It has plenty of new features and major IE release since IE6. So give yourself an opportunity to take a test drive of IE8.

 

Top 5 Features

Accelerators

Accelerators offers resourcefully your day to day surfing activities like mapping directions, translating words, emailing your friends (not even Live Mail, but you can also add 3rd party accelerators to get functionality to send using Gmail, Yahoo Mail etc), and much more few mouse clicks.

 

Web Slices

Using Web Slices, you can be notified and get updated contents regularly from the Favorites Bar. If a Web Slice is available on a page, a green Web Slices icon will appear in the upper-right hand corner of the browser. We can subscribe and add them to the Favorites Bar effortlessly.

Get Web Slices and Accelerators: http://ieaddons.com/

 

Instant Search

One thing that amazed me is Instant Search and offers preview of search result’s web pages. Instant Search, as you type anything in search box, it display search results with visual preview according to relevant web search. IE 8 offers accelerators to add custom search of top search providers like Live Search, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, Amazon, Google and much more.

 

Compatibility View

IE 8 is a beta release and most of websites may not yet be ready for Internet Explorer 8 and it distorts UI of web pages. To fix or resolve this issue IE 8 offers Compatibility View button to display the website as viewed in Internet Explorer 7, which will correct display problems like misaligned text, images, or text boxes. You can add any website in capability list by click on Compatibility View button in address bar.

 

InPrivate Browsing

I am sure; this feature will be taking on by most of users. Sometimes you want to safe browsing without footprints for a specific web browsing activity. Then InPrivate Browsing helps you to prevent your browsing history, cookies, and usernames and passwords from being retained by the web browser, leaving no evidence of your browsing or search history.

 

You can start InPrivate Browsing by opening a new tab and selecting InPrivate Browsing from Command Bar’s Safety menu or by press shortcut key CTRL+Shift+P.

Rest of all these features, there are lots of changes has been implemented such as SmartScreen Filter formally know as Phishing Filter, Enhanced Favorites Bar, Tab isolation and Crash recovery. So give yourself an opportunity to take a test drive of IE8.