Microsoft not only lists the installed toolbars, plugins and add-ons but also their loading time. This loading time is added on top of the normal tab loading time in Internet Explorer. It is now easy with the tools at hand to analyze the toolbars and plugins that increase the tab and window loading time in Internet Explorer the most and find ways to deal with the situation.

A right-click on any toolbar or plugin in the add-on’s menu provides the option to disable it right away. Internet Explorer 8 will automatically search for related add-ons giving the user the choice to disable them as well. The loading time of some plugins and toolbars is not displayed in the manager. Disabling these can also have a positive effect on the tab and window loading times in Internet Explorer.

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A new Internet Explorer 8 session can be created from the Internet Explorer menu toolbar which might be hidden on your computer system. The fastest way to create a new session if the menu bar is not shown is to press the keyboard combination [Alt f] [i] [enter]. This will open a new Internet Explorer 8 window in a new session. Opening a new tab or window in contrast would share the cookies in Internet Explorer 8. It is furthermore possible to start a new session from the command line by launching iexplore.exe with the -nomerge parameter.

Internet Explorer 8 sessions are a very effective way of accessing multiple accounts at the same web service at once. Microsoft should think about placing that option more dominantly in Internet Explorer 8 as its current position will most likely not be noticed by many Internet Explorer users.

There is not any comparable option in the other Internet browsers yet. Firefox users can use the Gmail Account Manager to manage multiple Gmail accounts but there does not seem to be a feature available that would allow users to log into multiple accounts at all web services.

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For most users this is an easy and straightforward process as Internet Explorer 8 can be removed from the programs list in the Windows Control Panel. Only Windows XP users who installed the third service pack before Internet Explorer 8 were not able to uninstall the web browser unless they would uninstall the service pack 3 before.

Microsoft has created a script to remove Internet Explorer 8 automatically from a computer system where it is installed. The script is available as part of Microsoft’s Fix It initiative which tries to provide one click solutions to common problems on the Windows platform. The file UninstallIE8.msi can be executed right from the Microsoft website or by downloading it to a local computers system and running it from there. Please note that it is generally not a good idea to remove Internet Explorer 8 unless it is causing troubles on a computer system.

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The distribution will be started in the third week of April for users running Internet Explorer 6 or Internet Explorer 7 on the Microsoft operating systems Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. The update will be a high priority update for Windows XP and Server 2003 while it will be rated important on Vista and Server 2008.

The rollout will commence gradually with no time frame given at this time. This does not mean however that Internet Explorer 8 will be installed on the computer system right away. Microsoft is giving users the choice to perform the installation, to delay or avoid it.

The majority of users will most likely perform the install of Internet Explorer 8 which is beneficial not only for them and the security of their computer system but also for web developers who usually dislike the older Internet Explorer editions.

Users, system administrator or companies who want to opt out can still install the Internet Explorer 8 Blocker tool. New Internet Explorer users might be interested in Internet Explorer 8 ad blocking.

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Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 introduced a set of new features (accelerators and web slices) that fall into the add-on category as well. The following article contains 8 sleeper Internet Explorer add-ons that can be useful for the majority of Internet Explorer 8 users.

We would also like to point out that this is already the second article about Internet Explorer 8 add-ons and that the first can be accessed at this link. (read: 10 Useful Internet Explorer Add-ons).

First a quick explanation about the different types of add-ons for Internet Explorer:

• Accelerators: Provide functionality directly on the website.
• Web Slices: Real time information that are displayed in Internet Explorer.
• Search Providers: These add-ons add new search engines to the web browser.

1. Job Search (Accelerator)

Will search for a selected job on thousands of websites including newspapers, job boards and company career pages.

2. Tweet Internet Explorer

Twitter add-on for Internet Explorer 8 that adds a button to the toolbar which, when pressed, opens a popup window that allows to post status updates to Twitter.

3. Xmarks Synchronization

Synchronize favorites and bookmarks across multiple computers.

4. Post To LiveJournal

Makes it possible to quickly post to LiveJournal using the selected text on another website.

5. New York Times Latest News

Quick access to the latest news (titles, videos and excerpts) that have been posted on the New York Times website.

6. Find on Last.fm

Will search for the selected text on the popular music community portal Last.fm

7. LastPass Password Manager

LastPass is an online password manager that provides access to interesting features like password generation. It is available for multiple web browsers.

8. Open It Online Lite

Open documents, spreadsheets and presentations online with this useful Internet Explorer add-on.

Do you know of any add-ons for the Internet Explorer web browser that are worth mentioning? Let us know in the comments.

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While this works as intended in the 32-bit edition of Windows Vista it does not in the 64-bit edition as it is still possible for users to access Internet Explorer from the Windows start menu. The hotfix corrects the issue so that the function is working as intended on 64-bit editions of Windows Vista as well.

The second problem affects the 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. Microsoft describes the problem the following way:

The Image Delivery server that runs the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2008 or of Windows Server 2003 stops delivering images when you deploy an operating system by using an image-based installation method

The hotfix can also be downloaded directly by visiting the Microsoft Knowledge Base article.

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Report a Webpage Problem is an Internet Explorer 8 add-on that can currently be downloaded from Microsoft Download. The add-on will only be provided for a limited time as a download, most likely to sort out and analyze the biggest remaining compatibility issues. The Internet Explorer 8 add-on is a standalone executable for the Windows operating system that gets added to Internet Explorer 8 during installation.

The Internet Explorer 8 add-on adds a toolbar button to the command line of Internet Explorer 8 and will also provide the same link in the Tools menu. Users who want to report a webpage problem while using Internet Explorer 8 simply have to click on the link which will load a page at the official Microsoft website containing a form. A click will automatically generate a screenshot of the current page and store it in the temporary Internet files as ReportSiteIssueImage.bmp.

The form itself is made up of a comment box that takes up to 1000 chars and a Issue Category selector that classifies the problem as one of the following:

• Page does not render properly
• Only works when emulating IE7
• IE complains of a scripting Error
• Performance is slow
• IE crashes
• Other

Additional data is send to Microsoft as stated in the Privacy Statement:

Along with the information described above, information about your computer (”standard computer information”) is sent Microsoft. Microsoft uses standard computer information to provide you Internet-enabled services, to help improve our products and services, and for statistical analysis. Standard computer information typically includes information such as your IP address, operating system version, browser version, and regional and language settings.

This Internet Explorer 8 add-on will definitely be helpful for users who are stuck with Internet Explorer and experience webpage problems.

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Internet Explorer 8 is Microsoft’s attempt at winning back market shares from popular web browsers and especially Mozilla Firefox. Microsoft has added several new and improved security features to Internet Explorer 8 like the private browsing mode, automatic crash recovery, domain highlighting or Cross Site Scripting (XSS) and SmartScreen filters. There are also additional usability features like Accelerators or Web Slices which have been implemented into Internet Explorer 8. Most of these features have already been ported by Firefox users to the Firefox web browser.

Companies with strict security guidelines (that do not allow the installation of Firefox or Firefox add-ons) will increase the security and stability of their computer systems with the new browser. Most performance tests on the other hand see Internet Explorer 8 on the end of the list. Internet Explorer 8 does however provide major performance improvements over previous versions of the web browser like Internet Explorer 7 or 6.

There are no information available at this point if Microsoft will add Internet Explorer 8 to Windows or Microsoft Update and provide the web browser as an automatic update to Windows users.

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Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators help in the retrieval and manipulation of data on websites. It usually involves selected content on a website first and the accelerator to process the content afterwards. This can range from translation services to drawing a map of the location of the near restaurant you just discovered or checking the price of an item on a shopping site.

Whenever the user marks elements on a website that can be processed by installed Accelerators a blue icon appears next to the selected element. A click on that icon will provide access to all installed Accelerators that can be used to process the selected data.

If the user hovers his mouse over an accelerator a small overlay window will usually appear on the screen displaying the contents of the processed data, for example a map if an Internet Explorer 8 Accelerator has been selected that looks up addresses in maps. Some Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators on the other hand do not make use of the overlay.

1.Map on Live Maps – One of the default Internet Explorer 8 accelerators that comes preinstalled. It can be used to quickly lookup an address on Live Maps.

2. Find On eBay – Will look up the selected text on eBay displaying matching auctions.

3. Translhttp://www.ieaddons.com/en/details//ate With Live Search – Another default Internet Explorer 8 Accelerator that can quickly translate selected text in the web browser.

4. Weather.com – Look up weather information at weather.com.

5. Wikipedia Accelerator – Makes it possible to quickly look up information at the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

6. Look up in Google News – Will look up the selected text in Google News.

7. Sent with Windows Live Hotmail – send selected information with an Windows Live Hotmail account.

8. Login Using BugmeNot – BugMeNot is a service that operates a database of public login credentials that can be used log into websites without registration.

9. Blogger – The Blogger Accelerator makes it easier to write about interesting stories discovered on the Internet.

10. Share With delicious – Share information easier with Delicious.

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What it basically does is to send the user input to a Google service that is analyzing it and sending suggestions back. While this could be an interesting feature for some users who love to explore new websites it also made quite a few users uncomfortable in knowing that Google would get all that user input delivered on a golden platter.

Internet Explorer 8 is making use of exactly the same feature that is automatically suggesting websites based on the previous input of the user. The suggested sites setting in Internet Explorer 8 reports the user’s browsing history to Microsoft who in turn send recommended sites back to the user.

While this might be an interesting feature it will raise the same alarm bells that are still ringing from Google Chrome’s data collection hunger. (Google admitted to store 2% of the data with IP addresses, no word on how Microsoft intends to use or store the data).

Turning that feature off in Internet Explorer 8 is fortunately as easy as turning it off In Google Chrome. Users simply have to click on Tools > Suggested Sites to turn if off (or on if it is turned off and the feature is wanted)

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Users who experience those problems would probably like to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 and go back to Internet Explorer 7. The following guide explains how to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

Some Windows XP users might not be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 8. This happens to the users who installed a previous version of Internet Explorer 8 and later on the Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. A warning is issued to those users during installation of Internet Explorer 8 that the installation will become permanent.

They might still be able to use System Restore to downgrade again if a System Restore point is available that dates back prior to the installation of Internet Explorer 8.

Uninstalling Internet Explorer 8 in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003

• From the Start menu, open Control Panel and click Add or Remove Programs
• Click Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 and then click Remove.
• Your computer will be reverted to Internet Explorer 6 + previous IE6 security updates or Internet Explorer 7 + previous IE7 security updates depending on what you had before the upgrade.
• You can confirm that by clicking Help, then About Internet Explorer next time you launch Internet Explorer.
• Be sure to check for any new security updates.

Uninstalling Internet Explorer 8 in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

• From the Start menu, open Control Panel and click Programs
• Click Programs and Features and click View Installed Updates (located in the left side menu
• Select Windows Internet Explorer 8 and Uninstall
• Your machine will be reverted to IE7 + previous IE7 security updates
• You can confirm that by clicking Help, then clicking About Internet Explorer next time you launch Internet Explorer.
• Be sure to check for any new security updates.

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The Internet Explorer development team focused on three themes according to the announcement: Everyday browsing, safety and the plattform with everyday browsing probably getting the biggest boost in this beta.

Microsoft is providing a navigation bar that is doing more than just opening urls or showing pages that have been visited before. The navigation bar resembles that of Firefox’s location bar with suggestions, feeds, history and favorites thrown into the mix. The Smart Address Bar as it is called now looks cleaner that that of Firefox because it breaks down the different data locations nicely.

The Internet Explorer developers introduced colored tabs, so called tab groups, depending on the type of site and source that has been accessed and way to restore closed tabs and entire sessions.

Internet Explorer Activities have been renamed to Accelerators and Beta 2 sees a few new additions to the concept. Lastly you get a visual search when entering a search term in the default search bar in the header area.

Some features in the everyday browsing category are interesting. I like the clean look of the smart address bar and the colored tabs.

The team is also stating that they have speed up Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 performance wise but I was not able to test that yet extensively.

A lot of smaller changes have been introduced in Internet Explorer 8 as well that make the web experience a tad easier. Take Find on Page for example. When you search on a page Internet Explorer is showing you the number of hits it found on that page. A very nice handy feature.

A lot has been done in the security sector as well. InPrivate Browsing ensures that no data is written and stored on the local PC while browsing Internet sites. In addition to that InPrivate Blocking makes it possible to block third party web content that track or aggregate online behavior.

The development team has put lots of though into this version and I can say that I have not been so excited about a new version of Internet Explorer in a long time. Firefox users can add most of the features with add-ons but it is definitely a step in the right direction for users who are using Internet Explorer. Well done Microsoft.

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Windows XP users on the other hand have access to Internet Explorer 6 by default and can upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 by downloading it from the official Microsoft Internet Explorer website. Internet Explorer 7 is available in many language versions as well, a huge page with 30 or so languages is provided on that website as well.

Microsoft is currently working on Internet Explorer 8; A beta version of that browser is available for download as well. The easiest way to download that Internet Explorer version would be to head for the Internet Explorer 8 site at Microsoft and download it from there.

Older versions of Internet Explorer are not available for download officially but a tool called IE Tester is available that gives access to previous versions of Internet Explorer.

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The question (via NeoWin)if the website is ready for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 is not aimed to let everyone know that Microsoft is again creating their own standards, to the contrary. The question is specifically aimed at webmasters who have optimized their websites for previous versions of Internet Explorer which, without doubt, did not take it to serious with being standard compliant.

Nick MacKechnie is putting is this way on his MSDN blog:

This creates a call to action for site owners to ensure their content will continue to display seamlessly in Internet Explorer 8. As such, we have provided a meta-tag usable on a per-page or per-site level to maintain backwards compatibility with Internet Explorer 7. Adding this tag instructs Internet Explorer 8 to render content like it did in Internet Explorer 7, without requiring any additional changes.

He goes on by leaking the information that the second beta of Internet Explorer 8 will be released in the third quarter of 2008.

We are encouraging site administrators to get their sites ready now for broad adoption of Internet Explorer 8, as there will be a beta release in the third quarter of this year targeted for all consumers.

Microsoft created a Knowledge Base article entitled Your Web site may not display correctly in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 which is also the main source of information for webmasters seeking information about compatibility to Internet Explorer Beta 2.

It is interesting to see that Microsoft really has the intention to comply to web standards with Internet Explorer 8.

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All browsers were already in memory and the following pages were each loaded once to avoid cache issues: Digg, CNN, Ghacks and Facebook. The results were pretty astonishing and I’m still thinking that some of the slow loading times might have been caused by a server hickup or a short prob with my Internet connection although I did not see any signs for that on my part. Another possible cause could be add-ons that have are already working in Firefox.

The most astonishing values are two page loading times of Firefox 3. It tool 13.17 seconds to load Digg while Opera needed 5.59 seconds and Internet Explorer 8 only 5.28 seconds. The second huge difference was encountered on Facebook where Opera 9.5 was the fastest browser with a loading time of 1.95 seconds.

Internet Explorer 8 followed with 2.83 seconds and Firefox 3 needed 22.60 seconds to load the page. Firefox on the other hand was the fastest browser when loading my site with 1.9 seconds followed by Opera with 2.38 and Internet Explorer with 4.83 seconds.

The same can be said for the loading time of CNN where Firefox needed 2.94 seocnds, Opera 3.38 seconds and Internet Explorer 8 4.58 seconds.

The only two values that stick out are the Firefox loading times of Facebook and Digg. Anyone here who would like to test the speeds on their connection and post the results in this thread ?

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Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is available for Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 both in 32-bit and 64-bit editions. The Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit homepage lists several of the new features of the new browser, amongst them an improved phishing filter, automatic crash recovery and two features called Activities and Web Slices that require some further explanation.

Activities are context related services that can be accessed by right-clicking on the website. They offer basically the same features that multiple Firefox add-ons offer, like looking up a definition of a term, digging a url or translating a sentence.

Web Slices are little applications that behave like feeds and can be added to a Internet Explorer 8 toolbar. You could for instance display the  weather conditions of your hometown there.

Internet Explorer has some exciting new features build in during first start. It is now possible to import bookmarks from Firefox and or Opera and a scan is performed to check which Firefox add-ons are installed with the option to visit the Windows Marketplace to find similar extensions for Internet Explorer. That search however has to be improved because my results list had more than 9000 entries lots of them unrelated to the add-ons that I had installed.

I think that many users will welcome those new usability functions in Internet Explorer. Web Slices could be interesting in some occasions, not only for weather conditions but also for stock market information or  even the daily meal in the cantina.

Oh, and Ghacks is rendering fine. The Download Squad did not have that much luck.

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IT Week reported today that a public beta release of Internet Explorer 8 will be released in the first half of 2008 and that the new Microsoft browser will make its first public appearance at the MIX ‘08 conference in Las Vegas that begins on March 5. The article states that “Microsoft would make the pre-release code available to the general public” which is probably a misinterpretation rather than a fact. I personally believe that code simply means the program and not the source code of Internet Explorer.

Lets all hope that Microsoft will get their acts together and create a web browser that is standard compliant. I’m looking forward to test the new Internet Explorer and will definitely run a series of performance tests. Will be interesting to see how the browser fares against Opera 9.5 and Firefox 3 who both increased the performance over previous versions.

Would you change to the new Internet Explorer 8 if you are using Firefox or Opera currently ? Would you change from IE to the other two browsers ? Let me know.

There is already a heated discussion about the new Internet Explorer 8 at the official Internet Explorer blog, very interesting read if you are a webmaster or developer.

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