Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Now Available

Cool. As a web developer, I've been waiting for a chance to play with 8. Question: Can IE8 be installed without blowing away IE7? And still be able to run IE7 when needed? This would be handy for me, as I'd like to test under IE8 but don't want to set up a separate machine just to do so. (I already run 9 different browsers on three different platforms, so life is confusing enough as it is.) Thanks.

>>I like what they did with the search bar; it goes through your history, suggested searches, and feeds on the current webpage. << Sounds like the FF3 'Awesome' bar. I've read that several have wanted to turn the feature off.

Of course, going to http://www.me.com with IE 8 Beta 2 still gives: Internet Explorer 7 is not fully supported Internet Explorer 7 has known compatibility issues with modern web standards which affect Web 2.0 applications such as MobileMe. You can use Internet Explorer 7, but you will not have access to all MobileMe features and will experience slower performance. For the best MobileMe experience, please use Firefox 3 or Safari 3.

Hey look, theres Mike bashing Apple like he does in every comment. woo hoo. IE 8 is in BETA and even Paul in his review said things dont work with it yet, give it time.

OK, I admit I should have known that IE 8 Beta 1 wasn't a program (for removal purposes) but an update. I mean, its obvious, that since IE can't be stripped out per sworn testimony, changing it must mean updating it. Once I got to the right removal place, Beta 1 removed nicely. Then the install was painless (if not swift, but the machine is not swift). And the browser looked good until I visited-- http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx at which point I got an "Internet explorer has stopped working" box in front of a seemingly complete page. Clearly I shouldn't go off visiting suspect sites. ;-)

Strange. I had no problems with http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx So far, I'm pretty impressed with IE8. It does have minor problems, but it's still in beta so I think I can live with them.

shark47, I haven't had trouble with the Microsoft top page since that first adventure. A problem I am having is having my wireless connection die between page views (such as between reading this page and trying to post this). This is new behavior, on my home network that I usually have no trouble with. Disconnecting and reconnecting using the icon in the tray fixes it.

Fascinating. Firefox produces the same problem of the connection being unusable between page views. (Not stated before: ping given in Command Prompt fails too.) Yet another machine restart in progress. Hard to see how having IE 8 Beta 2 installed would cause that when using Netscape. Restart didn't help. This is almost certainly something here: I can't believe that one of Paul and Ed Bott would not have noticed sudden failures of networking. Meanwhile, note the spacing oddities in my prior post. That was written in IE 8 Beta 2 (with a disconnect/reconnect wireless cycle after trying to post). (This is written in Safari on Mac--I see absolutely zero reason to run Safari on Windows.)

Thanks Shark. Its a good read. Bott is a great journalist.

Buggy?? >>For those who may have been unable to sleep, tossing and turning, feverishly awaiting the second beta of Internet Explorer 8 -- you can relax now. It's here. Or, depending on how well you tolerate buggy, unfinished software, your anxiety may be just beginning. -- But here's my quick verdict: It has some intriguing features and I generally like it, but unless the final Beta 2 has dramatically improved stability, most users will want to wait for a release candidate or the finished version to try it out. << http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2008/08/now_available_for_the_b...

I must be missing something about the recent IE 8 review that was released. When I press Ctrl-F and start entering search terms IE gets busy searching the page and highlighting things that it is finding in yellow. This seems to contradict the review posted which says "This toolbar works much like a similar feature in Mozilla Firefox but does not provide results highlighting." Am I missing something here? Maybe we have a slightly newer version?

I love IE 8. I am writing this comment from IE 8 now. I think I might make IE my default browser instead of Firefox 3.01

"Of course, some vendors seem to leave their products in beta forever so that might say something, too." Someone's grandpa wouldn't be happy if he knew his pic is has been used in their avatar.

I'm a die-hard Opera user... but I have to say that I'm loving the tab groups and accelerators.

So far, so good. I haven't had any major problems so far. Of course, I've used it only for an hour or so. One thing is clear - Microsoft is taking browser security seriously.

Just as an FYI, the review in ArsTechnica mentioned that IE8 does not render some Microsoft sites correctly and gave a screenshot of Hotmail Classic as an example. I tried it today and didn't have problems. Microsoft does seem to have worked on this, among other issues during the last few days.

Ocean, You probably should also point out that no released browsers pass Acid3 (some special test versions do) and that Acid3 is still under development. (Not exactly "Web browser standards") On the other hand, IE 8 beta 1 and beta 2 both pass the current Acid2 "standards test" Also note that calling any Acid test a "standards test" is a bit silly since there is NO standards body that uses Acid as its offical test suite so what it measures isn't compliance to standards but compliance to the people who write Acid's interpretation of standards. Welcome to the world of "standards" that aren't standard.

Good article about a nice feature , a mode called InPrivateBrowsing: http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-technology/20080827/TEC.Microsoft.I...

RunTimeError: Quit being an a$$. Got anything worthwhile to contribute to the discussion? Would you rather have Ocean and the ilk's uncontested cut and paste BS?

In response to Mike's MobileMe bash.... http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10028458-75.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksA...

We've done the whole MobileMe bash thing before. Apple pulled the cheeky comment about IE7's "known compatibility issues with standards" after some heat from blogs (Paul's included), but those sneaky fruitheads put that back in.

RaaJ, Sorry. Missed the point about the fruitheads putting it back in. I, personally, am not sure they ever actually took it out. I suspect they issues a press release with the intent and didn't bother actually doing it since image is everything.

Why would Apple, put a line of code into MobileMe to support a beta MS browser? I am going to bet that if IE8 will be fully supported by MobileMe soon after it is RTM. Yes IE8 is a beta, and that is why it wont work with lots of stuff, to include Microsoft stuff. MS browser, MS applications....should work there if anywhere. Safari works with MobileMe. Apple browser, Apple product.

Lindy Supporting a beta is a good idea. It's how you work out the bugs so when the product ships you actually work. I know beta testing your products so they interoperate correctly at ship is a novel idea for Apple but I'd assumed you'd heard of it. And IE 8 has been out for developer testing for several months and I can guarantee that the Microsoft team that works with Apple has repeatedly pointed them to the "How to change your web page to work with IE 8" documents that are freely available both on the MSDN sites and on the partner sites. Now, if your criterion is that Apple services need to only work with Apple products, fine. They'd be giving up most of the potential market but that would be their choice. But they don't do that, they advertise the product as supporting non-Apple products. And that means they actually have to do the work to get interoperability. Having a broken UserAgent string routine is just flat out bush league stuff that's embarassing. It's the kind of mistake I'd expect from an intern at best and something that should never have actually made it out the door. That it did is an indictment of the quality of coding, testing and code review in the product. Seriously, this is one step above misspelling your product's name on the web page.

johnbaxter Or, as the IBM Jargon Dictionary used to call it, ROJ. (Retired On the Job) Of course, it could still be the work of an intern. I never said an intern programmer. Maybe an intern in Marketing.