IE8 BETA 1 Preview

( Image credited to Microsoft.com )

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/default.mspx

New release IE8 Beta 1 is now available.
Download and try it out now.

IE8 for Vista
Size: about 11mb
Date Published: 06/03/2008

New Features:

ActivitiesChoice of layout engine

Activities are contextual services that provide quick access to external services from any webpage. Activities typically involve one of two types of actions:

• "Look up" information related to data in the current webpage
• "Send" content from the current webpage to another application
  

WebSlices
Web sites can expose portions of their page as a WebSlice that users can subscribe to and bring that content with them on their links bar wherever they are on the web.
Users receive update notifications when the content changes.


Choice of layout engine
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 will ship in standards mode by default. However, three different rendering modes that may be set using the X-UA-Compatible header:

• Quirks mode which supports Internet Explorer 5 and legacy browsers
• Strict mode which supports Internet Explorer 7 and is accessed through the emulate Internet Explorer 7 button
• Internet Explorer 8 standards mode
• Cascading style sheets 2.1 compliance
  

The Internet Explorer 8 layout engine is built to be cascading style sheets 2.1 compliant, enabling web developers and designers to write their pages once and have them render properly across all cascading style sheets 2.1 compatible browsers.

However, Microsoft is not finished—hence, Microsoft is seeking feedback from developers working with Internet Explorer 8 Developer Beta 1.

HTML improvements
Many cross-browser inconsistencies have been fixed in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, including:

• Separate URL handing for attributes
• The get/set/remove attribute implementations are now compatible with those of other browsers
• Default attributes for HTML are supported so that they always exist on elements whether specified in the markup or not
  

Improved namespace support
Internet Explorer 8 simplifies the use of standards-compliant XML-based webpages that support namespace features like scalable vector graphics, XML user interface language, mathematical markup language, and others.

Platform performance improvements

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 improves performance in many Internet Explorer subsystems, such as the HTML parser, cascading style sheets rule processing, markup tree manipulation, the JScript parser, garbage collector runtime, and memory management.
More performance work is planned for later beta releases.


Developer tools

Microsoft has heard your feedback that Internet Explorer needs its own built-in Developer Tools, so the new Developer Toolbar enables developers to quickly debug HTML, cascading style sheets, and JavaScript in a visual development environment that is included with the web browser.

Developers can quickly identify and resolve issues because of the deep insight the tool provides into the Document Object Model. The Developer Toolbar also allows the layout to be changed on the fly so that each rendering scenario can be tested thoroughly.

Compatibility for existing sites
Internet Explorer 8 includes a more standards compatible layout engine by default which allows developers to build a single standards compatible website for multiple browsers.

Internet Explorer 8 Developer Beta uses the Internet Explorer 8 standard mode layout engine by default. However, by clicking on the emulate Internet Explorer 7 button, users can choose when they use the strict mode which supports the Internet Explorer 7 compatible layout engine to retain compatibility with existing sites.


Improved security
Internet Explorer 8 will build upon Microsoft's security and privacy investments to address users' security concerns. In the months ahead, additional new protection, prevention, and privacy services will be added.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 includes:
Enhanced protection from deceptive websites:

As part of an ongoing commitment to privacy and security, Microsoft is making enhancements to the phishing filter in Internet Explorer 8 to provide additional protection against evolving threats to the consumer.

With the Safety Filter, Internet Explorer 8 will now protect against a broader set of online threats by analyzing the full URL string.
The Safety Filter provides a more granular detection, and these prevention capabilities enable Microsoft to protect against more targeted and sophisticated attacks.

What Is Domain Highlighting?
Domain Highlighting is a technology that highlights the top level domain in the address bar, allowing users to quickly confirm that the website they are visiting is the site they intended to visit.
The domain name is in bold and black font, standing out from other characters in the URL which are gray.