Last nite when I did facebooking, my windows update automatically download for Internet Explore 8, latest release of Microsoft browser with tag line “Easier, Faster and Safer” … I’m not a big fan of Internet Explore but lil bit curious on what key features sell by Microsoft in this new era of Internet War for his official browser. So, here are some reviews on Microsoft Internet Explore 8

Opening Screen

Well I have to admit with some additional features added, loading IE8 is much more faster than its predecessor (IE7), even I can say compare with Mozilla FF 3.0.3, but still Microsoft can’t beat Google on this. I don’t have Safari & Opera installed on my machine so can’t give comments about these 2 browsers versus new IE.

I think Microsoft also forget something on his opening screen. My setting for all browsers are always show blank for opening page, and Microsoft, same as Mozilla didn’t do anything with this, they show exactly blank page on first screen loaded, well indeed that was we asking for on our setup but it would be nice if you can give us something based on our browsing history and behavior to make our life easier, like such as frequently visit page, recently visit page and suggestion site, something that I know for sure Google Chrome has done and AFAIK on Safari. Funny thing is Microsoft do similar approach when open new tab, something that I don’t really understand, why it didn’t set as home screen on first place.

No frequently & recently visited pages still … LOL

Location Bar

Okay, now lets do main thing that a browse should do, browsing …

Nothing special when you typing something on location bar, you type something, and IE will list you recent visited page contain word you have entered, and it seems that IE also looking for history using Windows Search, unfortunately I don’t have Windows Search installed on my laptop so I can’t really figure out how it looks like would be.

Finally I found something that I like from IE8, LOL, on location bar, it highlight domain name in dark and set other as grey. It would be a nice way present Url link to avoid phishing sites that attempt to trick us with misleading addresses.

Tab Bar

Another good things on Microsoft Internet Explore 8 is it will group any tab that have relevancy by assigning background color to them. It helps me a lot as I tends to open many tabs during my work

Search Bar

Are you an internet marketer or AdSense owner that playing lot with SEO, here good news that you may note. Internet Explore Search Bar will recommend you top search keyword that relevant with any word you have typed on search bar.

Microsoft also doing lots of marketing of their new search engine, Bing, on this release of Internet Explore.

Context Menu

There are lots of improvement on Microsoft Internet Explore 8 context menu (menu that will be appeared when we right click within a software). First context menu will have quick link to other Microsoft product (like Windows Live, bing, Live Map and Live Translate), if you feel not convenience on Microsoft product, you may click on All Accelerators and you will get other link to another product, it also customizable, you can find other accelerator

Suggested Site

This is also one good thing, when you accessing a web page, you may click on Suggested Site button available on top section of Internet Explore 8, IE then will query related web page from bing to be suggested for us. Very handy for news reader or researcher

Web Slice

Internet Explore 8 introduce new feature and term called Web Slice. This is one feature that I don’t review yet, as I don’t think needed for now Basically it will read part of web page and make it keep update by your browser.

It would be good for someone that read rapid change information often like stock, quote, weather or else.

Pros & Cons

Pro

• Improve loading time compare with prior version
• Domain highlight
• Tabs grouping
• Recommended search keyword and suggested site
• Better context menu
• Web Slice

Cons

• No suggested site when opening empty screen
• Need Windows Search for some feature

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