Microsoft has now confirmed that they started working on Internet Explorer 9 and it seems that they have big plans for this browser. Three demo videos have been released by Channel 9 that show some of the Internet Explorer 9 developers showcasing some of the improvements that they already build into the web browser. The Sunspider Javascript benchmark comparison looks very interesting as the new Internet Explorer 9 JavaScript engine closes the gap to Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 to about 100 ms.

Standards and Interoperability

JavaScript performance:

Surfing On The GPU

The most interesting changes that have been announced so far:

• New Javascript engine
• GPU enhanced page rendering
• Better interoperability and web standards support

It is interesting that Microsoft is giving the public a chance to view the progress that they are making. They already changed their strategy during the Windows 7 development phase where they created blogs, videos and other means of showcasing the development progress and features to the public.

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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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There are a few options that European customers have to get a web browser. They can download one from another computer system, start the computer from a Live CD and move a web browser to a removable device, buy a computer magazine that comes with a web browser or order Internet Explorer right from Microsoft.

Amazon customers can add Internet Explorer 8 to their shopping cart for about 4 Euro. It is also possible to buy Internet Explorer directly from Microsoft for roughly the same price. Customers who want to order Internet Explorer directly from Microsoft can visit the website that is offering information about Windows 7 in Europe and options to either download or order Internet Explorer 8.

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Microsoft has introduced a few new features in Internet Explorer 8 including the inPrivate privacy feature but also architectural changes that made Internet Explorer 8 a multi-process browser. Microsoft has created a handful of command line arguments for Internet Explorer 8 that can be useful under certain circumstances.

Probably the most interesting is the ability to start Internet Explorer 8 directly in InPrivate mode by using the -private argument. This can be combined with the url argument that will open a specified url directly in Internet Explorer 8. The argument to open a specific url is simply that url, for example http://www.ghacks.net/. You can add the two parameters to any Internet Explorer 8 shortcut so that you start the web browser immediately in inPrivate mode and the specified url.

A right-click and the selection of Properties should open the Internet Explorer Properties window which contains a Target form in the Shortcut tab.

Simply append -private http://www.ghacks.net/ at the end of the line. The full line should look like the following afterwards:

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -private http://www.ghacks.net/

There are two additional command line arguments available for Internet Explorer 8 that might come in handy. The -k argument starts Internet Explorer 8 in Kiosk mode which has been designed primarily for presentations. It will start the web browser without toolbars and status bar.

The final parameter is -extoff which will start Internet Explorer 8 without extensions which is useful for troubleshooting purposes.

Which leads to the closing question: Does anyone know how to always launch Internet Explorer in InPrivate mode. The shortcut works fine if Internet Explorer 8 is started from the icon but it does not help if the user clicks on a link in another program like Microsoft Outlook.

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WOT, which stands for Web Of Trust, is an add-on for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer that increases the Internet security of the web browser. The main purpose of the add-on is to scan and rank all links in popular search engines and other websites to give the user an indication of the dangers of each listed website.

Each link on supported websites will be ranked with a single colored icon which can be expanded into a detailed view when hovering with the mouse over it. Websites are ranked from very poor to excellent in the four categories trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety.

The Internet Explorer add-on will display a popup if the user clicks on a link with a poor rating which works as a second warning. It is then up to the user to ignore the warning and visit the website, skip the website or check some user reviews on the Web of Trust website first.

Web of Trust should not obviously be the only means of Internet Security but it can be helpful especially for inexperienced users who might get into troubles when visiting unsafe websites. The Internet Explorer add-on is actually not exclusive to Internet Explorer as a version for Firefox is also available for download.

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Support has been added for the following languages:

Internet Explorer 8 MUI pack applicable to Windows XP x86 and Windows Server 2003 x86 for the following languages –

* Arabic, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Hong Kong), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Bulgarian, Croatian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Slovenian, Slovakian, Thai

Internet Explorer 8 MUI pack applicable to Windows Server 2003 x64 and Windows XP x64 PRO for the following languages –

* Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Portuguese (Brazil)

Downloads are available for..

• Windows XP 32-bit
• Windows XP 64-bit
• Windows Server 2003 32-bit
• Windows Server 2003 64-bit

via IEBlog

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Not everything is fine and shiny though. There are a few annoyances that are especially noticed by users who work with other web browsers as well. Listed below are the top 4 Internet Explorer 8 annoyances from a user’s point of view:

1. Internet Explorer 8 toolbars

The Internet Explorer 8 take up lots of screen estate. It is possible to hide toolbars to decrease the space requirements. The annoying aspect here is that it is however not possible to combine toolbars. Users of the Firefox web browser for example can merge all toolbars into one while Internet Explorer 8 users sit there with lots of blank screen estate because of this. Hiding the toolbars might work for some Internet Explorer users but most would probably like one-click access to their favorites and access to the Internet Explorer 8 menu.

2. Webslices and Accelerators

The idea behind these two features that have been introduced in Internet Explorer 8 is to provide users with quicker access to information. The reality shows that barely any new add-ons are created for Internet Explorer 8. The add-ons gallery is everything but filled to the brim with add-ons and it seems that most are basic search add-ons that allow users to search a specific site in Internet Explorer 8. This is a feature that is not being used by many Internet Explorer 8 users. (check Internet Explorer 8 Add-ons for some good ones)

3. Creating shortcuts, dragging and dropping elements

If you want to create a page shortcut on the computer desktop you only need to right-click the page in Internet Explorer 8 and select Create Shortcut. The annoying thing is that Internet Explorer 8 will always display a confirmation dialog “Do you want to put a shortcut to this website on your desktop”. That’s practically the same annoyance that game developers like to use when exiting their games. You click on Exit Game and they display a confirmation dialog “do you really want to exit the game?”.

The same is true for dragging and dropping elements to the computer system. It is for example possible to drag images from the web browser to the computer desktop. Internet Explorer 8 will display a confirmation dialog as well asking the user to confirm the action.

This could easily be solved by a set of advanced configuration settings where experienced (or annoyed) users could disable those confirmation dialogs.

4. RSS Feeds

All popular web browsers display a RSS feed indicator in the address bar except for Internet Explorer 8. The web browser uses an icon in the command bar that gives access to RSS feeds which is not helpful if the user has set the command toolbar to hidden or does not pay attention to it. It also happens that some icons do not appear in the command toolbar but have to be accessed by clicking on the down arrow on the right of it which indicates that there are more items in the toolbar.

Feel free to add any annoyance that you have encountered while using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8.

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Customize Google for Internet Explorer is a similar add-on for Microsoft’s web browser. The current set of options is not as vast as those in its Firefox counterpart though which can largely be attributed to the early build number of the add-on. The Internet Explorer add-on can be started from the Windows start menu after installation. It will display a configuration menu with options to start and stop the Customize Google add-on for Internet Explorer.

Google services and settings are divided into categories in a sidebar. The most popular Google services like web search, Google news or Google Mail are already included in the list. A click on any entry will display the configuration options for it in the right window.

Check boxes define if an option is enabled in Internet Explorer. Security conscious users may want to disable click tracking and Google cookies that can track user behavior while using any of the Google services.

The Internet Explorer add-on does not feel feature complete at his point in time when compared to the Firefox add-on of the same name. It does however provide the security and privacy options that many users seek which should be enough reason to give it a try.

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A user of the DSL Reports forum has converted the Adblock Plus list of blocked advertisement into an XML format that can be imported into Internet Explorer 8. All that needs to be done is to download the xml file from the website and import it into Internet Explorer 8 so that all of the ads and ad providers on that list are blocked automatically in Internet Explorer 8. The file has a size of more than eight Kilobytes and can be imported into Internet Explorer the following way after downloading and unpacking it.

Open Internet Explorer 8. Access Tools > InPrivate Filtering Settings from the toolbar menu.

A click on the Advanced Settings link in the lower half will open a new window that can be used to import filters in xml format.

The xml list can be imported easily by clicking on the Import button and selecting the xml file from the local hard drive. A message should appear notifying the user that the list was successfully imported. The main window should be filled with blocking rules after clicking ok.

The ads will now be automatically blocked in Internet Explorer. The only problems with this approach are that there is no way of automatically updating the list in regular intervals. There is also no option to enable the list globally but disable it on selected websites.

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Quick Proxy Switcher is a lightweight 60 Kilobyte application for Internet Explorer that makes it easier to change proxy servers in the web browser. The portable application will display its main interface after execution which will display the currently configured proxy server in Internet Explorer or a blank if none is configured.

There are lines for adding and changing the default proxy server and one alternative proxy server in Internet Explorer which can be easily switched by clicking on the set button in the interface. Minimizing the application will add a system tray icon which provides a similar functionality by right-clicking it.

Users can activate the default or alternative proxy server from that menu right away. The program is best used if Internet Explorer is closed as this is usually needed to change settings in the web browser. It does however work fine with the most popular editions of Internet Explorer including Internet Explorer 8. Quick Proxy Switcher requires the Microsoft .net Framework.

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Every other web browser in existence including Internet Explorer 7 and earlier have been displaying the main command buttons on the left side of the address bar. While usability tests might have shown that this is the best display for the buttons it will confuse many users who are used to the standard display of address bar buttons.

Microsoft has thankfully included an option to move the Stop and Refresh buttons from the right side of the address bar to Internet Explorer’s left. This is done by right-clicking free space on the Internet Explorer 8 toolbar,e.g. on the right side of Help, and selecting Customize from the menu.

This will immediately display a menu with the option to show the stop and refresh buttons before the address bar. The two buttons will be moved immediately to the left side of the Internet Explorer 8 address bar.

Internet Explorer 8 Address Bar Before:

Internet Explorer 8 Address Bar After:

There is however no obvious way to move other buttons in the Internet Explorer 8 address bar at this point.

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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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While Internet Explorer Privacy Manager would not have helped with that problem it does help in work environments where other users should not be able to access or see the websites that are opened. The software will install a Browser Helper Object in Internet Explorer that can be configured to either make the Internet Explorer web browser revert to the default home page or make the Internet Explorer browser to close after a certain time.

The time that it takes before the desired option will be applied can be configured in minutes by the user. The default time is set to five minutes and the default action is to go back to the default page of Internet Explorer.

The Internet Explorer Privacy Manager itself is a portable software program for the Windows operating system. It should work with most versions of Internet Explorer. The developers do not provide information about supported operating systems and Internet Explorer versions though.

The software can be downloaded directly from the developer’s homepage.

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Not included are the browsing history or session cookies which is a bit unfortunate as it could mean to log into several of the websites again if they require that. The extension becomes available in the Tools menu of Internet Explorer after installation where the sessions can be stored or loaded.

The Internet Explorer sessions are stored in the program directory by default. The extension provides the option to store them at the Amazon S3 Service instead which costs $0.150 per GB but has the advantage that the sessions are available online and can therefor be loaded from any computer with Internet connection.

Another option would be to send the session per email or upload it manually to the Internet to access it from a second computer.

One interesting aspect of the session manager for Internet Explorer is the ability to manage the stored urls of each session. Single urls can be loaded in the browser. It is also possible to delete urls from the session.

IE Sessions supports Internet Explorer 6 or on Windows XP or Windows 2000. Windows Vista users should read the information posted on the website about Vista compatibility first before they install the extension.

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Repair IE is a portable application for Windows operating systems that provides access to the five tabs Appearance, Browser Features, Network and Connections, Search Features and Security. Each tab contains so called items that enable or disable certain functions and features in Internet Explorer. The current value column gives information if the item is currently set to its default value or a custom value set by the user.

Most custom values are shown as Yes (True) or No (False) values with the occasional string for values that require path information. A double-click on an item changes the value of it. A Yes or No value would be inverted. If the inverted value is the default value the field would be cleared.

A path can be changed in a small popup window instead. A confirmation dialog is always shown before changing values.

Repair IE is an excellent Internet Explorer tweaking utility that can be used to change a lot of settings in Internet Explorer. The software developer designed the tool to fix malicious software leftovers after cleaning a computer system. An option to set everything to its default value would make the software program easier to handle.

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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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It seems that they have taken a good look around in the browser market and analyzed the crown jewels of the other browsers integrating them into the new Internet Explorer 8 Beta. This begins when starting Internet Explorer 8 for the first time. It asks you if you want to import bookmarks from either Firefox or Opera into the Microsoft browser. Something unthinkable in the past, at least at such a prominent position and location in the browser.

Bookmark import is fluent and Internet Explorer 8 does not seem to have a problem importing Firefox 3 bookmarks. That’s good. Internet Explorer 8 features an add-on browser similar to that of Firefox with the exception that you cannot search for add-ons in the menu itself. It does list all the installed toolbars, plugins and add-ons though which is great for getting a quick overview and disabling them.

Memory Footprint:

The memory footprint of Internet Explorer 8 is surprisingly low, using only half of the computer memory and virtual memory that Firefox 3 uses under similar circumstances.

Internet Explorer 8 Address Bar:

The new address bar which incorporates auto suggestions, the history, bookmarks and feeds looks clean and tidy which I personally like better than the display all mixed that Firefox 3 uses. The only negative aspect are the light colors that are used, it is hard to read for the eyes. Could be related to the Windows colors that I’m using on my system though.

Find On Page:

Another handy feature is the advanced find on page option that displays the number of occurrences of a term on a website. That’s handy if you are scrolling through a source code or large website and want to find a specific item. This enhanced feature is also highlighting all finds on the page at once which is great for a quick overview and orientation.

Tab Groups:

Internet Explorer will color tabs with a similar color if a user opens a link from an existing tab making it easy to distinguish websites and information.

Undo Close Tabs / Restore Sessions:

Internet Explorer comes with features to reopen tabs that have been closed by the user.

Enhanced Search:

The search box is now showing real time suggestions including images plus it includes the user’s favorites and browsing history.

Accelerators:

Accelerators are functions to use services of other websites on the current page. It reminds me a bit of Ubiquity with the difference that Accelerators are individual services that have to be activated. Accelerators are installed like add-ons and provide access to popular services like Stumbleupon, Facebook or Google Maps.

Web Slices:

Web Slices are items that can be placed in the Internet Explorer Favorites Bar who update themselves automatically. This can be news related, new items on eBay or Amazon, weather information or practically anything that is updated regularly.

Security:

Security has taken a major step in the right direction. Internet Explorer 8 comes with a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) filter, Domain highlighting, Per-site and Per-user ActiveX and Data execution prevention.

InPrivate Browsing was introduced which allows to surf the web without storing data about that session in the browser.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 shows lots of promise. The version is feature complete which means that there will be no additional features in the release candidates and final release version of Internet Explorer 8.

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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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IE Surfgear to the rescue. The tiny program adds three functions accessible through buttons to the Microsoft Internet Explorer. Each button resolves on of the problems mentioned above. The first button automatically changes the font size of tiny text (and only of it, normal sized text will remain untouched) on a website to an average one, the next removes background colors of text on a website and the last removes background textures (including colors) that make text hardly readable.

The author was so nice to add a live demonstration on his website where you can try the buttons and see what they do. The buttons should be available right away after installing IE Surfgear, if they are not you have to customize the Internet Explorer toolbar to add them (or only some of them) to it.

Click on Tools > Toolbars > Customize to add the buttons to your toolbar if they are not displayed after installation.

Funny side note. I did find the link to the program at Shell Extension City which is in my opinion a hard to read website with their black background and grey text. Take a look at the before and after (using the buttons) screenshots of the website.

That’s a visible difference, don’t you think ?

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