Windows Experience Blog : IE8

Windows 7 Activities at Gartner Symposium

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:49:48 GMT

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2009, the industry's largest and most important annual gathering of CIOs and their senior IT leaders is taking place this week in Orlando, Florida.

During this year’s event, which will focus on how business technology can help customers return to growth by balancing cost optimization and risk mitigation, Microsoft will be helping customers to understand how they can realize the benefits of Windows 7 through the following activities and sessions:

Windows 7 Early Adopter Customer Panel: Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 12:30PM - 1:30PM ET (Moderated by Michael A. Silver - Gartner)

A panel of Windows 7 early adopters will discuss Windows 7 planning, deployment tips and rollout plans. During the panel, attendees will share their experience on planning for a successful deployment and the immediate results they received deploying Windows 7. Featured Gartner Research VP & Distinguished Analyst Michael Silver will facilitate the panel discussion. Please visit Gartner.com for a replay of this webcast on October 22nd.

Windows 7 Unplugged-- Tips From Microsoft's CIO Office: Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 2:00Pm - 2:20PM ET (Rick Merrifield - Microsoft)

In this interactive session, the Chief Architect in Microsoft’s IT department will share insider tips on how to plan, pilot and rollout Windows 7. Learn how your organization can benefit from applying the Windows Optimized Desktop to increase end user productivity, enhance security and reduce costs by automating IT management.

Windows Optimized Desktop-- Windows 7 and Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack: Wednesday, October 21st 3:30PM -4:30pm ET (Gavriella Schuster - Microsoft)

The Windows Optimized Desktop is designed to help with today’s imminent IT challenges while ensuring your future success. Come learn how Microsoft Windows 7 and the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2009 R2 together provide better user productivity, stronger data protection, security and PC management and automation improvements that can help you save costs and improve IT efficiency.

Mastermind Keynote with Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division Thursday, October 22nd 11:00am - 11:45am (Moderated by Neil MacDonald and Brian Gammage - Gartner)

Gartner analysts Neil MacDonald and Brian Gammage will moderate an interview with Stephen on a variety of topics top of mind for Symposium attendees. As president of the Microsoft Business Division, Stephen oversees the Information Worker, Microsoft Business Solutions and Unified Communications Groups here at Microsoft and is a member of the company's senior leadership team that sets overall strategy and direction for the company.

Windows 7 Hand On Labs— Monday, October 19th- Thursday, October 22nd Various times (Various presenters)

30 minute, proctor led, interactive sessions where attendees can experience the following features of Windows 7: Windows 7 UI features, Internet Explorer 8 & Web Slices, Problem Steps Recorder, Med-V (using Internet Explorer to launch a Med-V web site), and using BitLocker which will include a 1GB key drive to activate BitLocker as a giveaway, with pre-loaded content including the current product guide and the Microsoft Optimized Desktop datasheet.

Continuing to Help Fight Hunger with Browser for the Better Campaign

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:45:39 GMT

Today, we are announcing that we are extending the Browser for the Better Campaign with Internet Explorer 8. We will continue to help fight hunger by donating 8 meals for every download of Internet Explorer 8 throughout the month of September. September is Hunger Action Month.

We want to encourage our customers to upgrade to a modern and secure browser – so we are doubling donations for people who switch from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8 through this campaign. If you move from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8, we will donate 16 meals to help fight hunger!

For more information, see this press release from Feeding America.

Final Release of Internet Explorer 8 Now Available

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:31:56 GMT

Today on Day 2 of MIX09, Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch during his keynote this morning in Las Vegas announced the availability of the final release of Internet Explorer 8 to download and install on their PCs.

Click here to download Internet Explorer 8!

Internet Explorer 8 is available for the following Windows releases: Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista (RTM), SP1 and SP2.

With Internet Explorer 8, common tasks on the Web are faster and easier. I’d like to take a moment and highlight how I am using Internet Explorer 8 today to quickly accomplish tasks that important to me. It all starts with my favorite Internet Explorer 8 feature – the Favorites Bar. The Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8 gives people quick access to information such as their top favorites and Web Slices.

On my Favorites Bar, I have Web Slices from partners such as Digg and The New York Times and of course Live Search (see my post on Live Search Web Slices). These Web Slices give me one click access to the latest news, weather, and traffic as I browse the Web. I never have to leave a webpage I’m on to view information from these Web Slices. When a Web Slice is updated, the slice on the Favorites Bar becomes bold. You can install Web Slices from The New York Times from this blog post from their First Look Blog and the Digg Web Slice can be installed by visiting Digg.com.

The Favorites Bar isn’t just a place for people to put their favorite Web Slices. In Internet Explorer 8, you can subscribe to an RSS feed and add it to your Favorites Bar.

With both RSS feeds and Web Slices on my Favorites Bar, I feel I am able to access important bits of information much quicker and easier.

The Favorites Bar is great at giving me information I want and keeping me up-to-date with things. But sometimes I need to quickly find something that’s not in my Favorites Bar. That’s where Internet Explorer 8’s Instant Search Box and Accelerators come in.

Internet Explorer 8’s Instant Search Box can provide Search Suggestions as you type in your search. When I search for “Windows” in Wikipedia, an Internet Explorer Search Provider, it provides me with suggestions (you’ll also note Instant Search also searches my History too).

Internet Explorer 8’s Instant Search also provides Visual Search. For example I am looking for some Zune accessories for my Zune 80. I want a dock for my Zune 80 for my office here in Redmond. Because just like with Wikipedia, I have Amazon.com as a Search Provider in Internet Explorer 8, I can search Amazon.com for Zune accessories and actually see the products.

Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 can also be a huge help in finding information you need – directly off a webpage.

Yesterday evening I was invited to a little meet up in downtime Seattle at a place called Spitfire Grill. I’m not too familiar with downtown Seattle yet so I had no idea where this place was. With Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 such as Live Search Maps, to find out where this place was real easy. All I needed to do was go to the Spitfire Grill website, select their address, click the blue Accelerator button that appears and choose “Map with Live Search” and a pop-out map appeared showing me where it was.

There are many Accelerators available today – including a Find on eBay Accelerator or a Find on Facebook Accelerator.

Accelerators aren’t necessarily just for finding information on a webpage. They can be used for sharing information on a webpage, or simply a webpage, too. My two favorite Accelerators I use to share information are the Share on Facebook Accelerator and fellow Microsoftie Adam Kinney’s Send to FriendFeed Accelerator. Both these Accelerators let me share webpages I find interesting that I would like other folks to check out.

So in closing, Internet Explorer 8 truly lets me do common tasks on the Web easier and faster. And because of it, I feel much more efficient. You should definitely go download Internet Explorer 8 today and give it a shot.

Feel free to share with me you favorite Web Slices, Search Providers or Accelerators in comments. Dig in at the Internet Explorer 8 Add-ons Gallery after you get Internet Explorer 8 installed.

And if you’re interested in how Internet Explorer 8 stacks up from a performance standpoint, I suggest reading this blog post and watching the following video:

IE8 Performance

IE8 Gets You Where You Want To Go, Quickly

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:04:33 GMT

As any browser vendor will quickly point out, accurately measuring the performance of a browser is extremely complex. On the surface, testing performance seems quite easy… visit a few sites with one browser and then again with a different browser, and simply time how long it took to load the page.

In reality, it’s much more complex than that.

Many things need to be taken into account when comparing the page load performance of different browsers. For example, due to the constantly changing nature of the Internet it is not easy to tell if the exact same content was delivered to each browser for each test. ISP’s, routers, and cable modems often cache their content, meaning that the page being loaded isn’t always coming all the way from the web server. The amount of network traffic can easily change between tests. All of these things (and more) can dramatically effect page load times.

Unfortunately, tools to accurately benchmark browser page load times don’t exist. All of the existing browser benchmarking tools available today are either narrow in their scope (SunSpider, Celtic Kane), inaccurate (iBench), or don’t consider important factors such as network latency, network congestion, and caching.

In the absence of effective benchmarking tools the Internet Explorer Team created a real world test which took the above mentioned factors into consideration and created a level playing field for all browsers tested. The results when comparing Internet Explorer 8 page load times to Firefox and Chrome were captured on video:

IE8 Performance

The performance video visually compares page load times between IE8, FF, and Chrome. Of the top 25 most popular sites in the world, IE8 wins 48% of the time, Chrome wins ~~38%~~ 36% of the time, and FF only wins 16% of the time. Of course, they didn’t cherry pick the sites they tested. They chose the top 25 sites as reported by ComScore in December 2008.

We encourage (and expect) people to run their own tests to measure page load times and for the browser industry at large to create a test that can accurately measure page load times – as seen by the user – across browsers. To assist people in running their own tests the Internet Explorer Team has also created a whitepaper which describes techniques that can be used to contend with some of the complex issues mentioned above.

For more information on Internet Explorer 8, visit www.microsoft.com/ie8.

UPDATED 6:16pm Pacific Time: Corrected percentage numbers to accurately reflect data from whitepaper.

What are people saying about Internet Explorer 8 RC1?

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:45:56 GMT

Just like with the Windows 7 Beta, I thought it would be nice to take a look at what people have been saying about Release Candidate 1 of Internet Explorer 8.

Dana Wollman from LAPTOP says:

The last time we tested IE 8, it was often—but not always—faster than Firefox 3. This time around, it blew Firefox out of the water, along with Google Chrome.

Joe Wilcox from Microsoft Watch says this:

IE 8 is the most significant upgrade to the browser family in more than a decade—not since IE 4, I say. This is the version you want to download, try and adopt.

Preston Gralla from Computerworld says this:

IE8 is clearly nearly ready for release. RC1 is stable and fast, and it contains a full feature set.

From SuperSite for Windows, Paul Thurrott says this:

...IE 8 RC1 is a solid upgrade over the previous Beta 2 release, and points to a solid final release. If you're already using a previous beta version, you should snag RC1 immediately. And if you're curious about the future of Windows Web browsers, you could do a lot worse than IE 8 RC1: Even in prerelease form, it's a solid, dependable browser. Recommended.

Anthony Ha from VentureBeat says:

All in all, this sounds like a cool package, not just a facelift. At the very least, I can say that the new browser includes some compelling concepts that could help Microsoft hold on to its insanely high market share, and perhaps even reverse its decline against competitors like Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari.

Michael Muchmore from PC Magazine says this:

...I really like what Microsoft has done with Internet Explorer, and, in this late prerelease version, looks ready to give our Editors' Choice Web browser, Firefox 3, a real run for its money. The new browsing conveniences, tab behavior, security protections, and standards support offer a potent combo.

And from InformationWeek, J. Nicholas Hoover says:

Microsoft has come a long way with IE8 by pushing performance barriers, embracing Web standards, and adding a few new features.

If you haven’t already, download Internet Explorer 8 RC1 today from http://www.microsoft.com/ie8.

Live Search Web Slices for Internet Explorer 8

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 06:37:23 GMT

Have you ever been browsing the web and suddenly realized that you need to quickly check the weather, the traffic, or stock price for some company? With Internet Explorer 8 you can get all of that information, and much more, without ever having to navigate to another site or leave the page you are on. We call it a Web Slice. With Live Search and Internet Explorer 8, you can have quick access to this kind of information and more.

So what are Web Slices exactly? Web Slices bring the user’s favorite data directly into the Internet Explorer 8’s Favorites Bar, making it instantly available wherever the user goes on the Web. The screenshot below shows a Web Slice for tracking the weather for Seattle:

Instead of having to repeatedly visit websites to check for updated information, Web Slices allow people using Internet Explorer 8 to keep track of information from within a webpage right from the Favorites Bar. When a website has a Web Slice, users will be notified a Web Slice exists within that page in several ways:

A green Web Slice icon will appear in the Internet Explorer Toolbar (where the RSS feed icon usually is) notifying you that the webpage you are on has a Web Slice. As you move your mouse through the webpage, when you mouse over an area of the webpage that has the Web Slice, the Web Slice icon will also appear. This is because as I mentioned above, Web Slices are snippets of information within a webpage.

Today, Live Search provides several really neat Web Slices (that ties in with search results) that allows you to stay up-to-date with the latest information on local weather, traffic, top headlines, and stocks as you browse the web.

Live Search Weather Web Slice: When searching weather for a specific city or town in Live Search, the results provided show the current weather for that city or town and the forecast for the next 4 days. These results are also offered as a Web Slice which can be added to your Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8.

For example, if I search “weather Seattle” in Live Search, I get the current weather and 4-day forecast for Seattle. I can add to this Web Slice to my Favorites Bar and stay on top of the weather for Seattle. The Web Slice will regularly update with the latest weather information.

A screenshot for the Live Search Weather Web Slice can be seen above.

TIP: You can right click on a Web Slice on the Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8 to “refresh” a specific Web Slice or all Web Slices to get up-to-date information.

Live Search Traffic Web Slice: This one is my personal favorite. In Live Search if you search on traffic for a specific city (like Seattle), you are given the latest traffic for that city in your results. These traffic results are also a Web Slice which can be added to your Favorites Bar. If you live in your browser – this could be a great way to stay up on traffic (and when it might be a good time to leave work!).

Please note that this Web Slice (and traffic results in Live Search) is only available for select cities that offer traffic data. If you search for traffic for your city or town and the search results don’t offer up any traffic then it is likely Live Search does not have traffic data for your city.

TIP: You can grab a specific Web Slice on your Favorites Bar and drag it left or right and change the order Web Slices and Favorites are displayed on your Favorites Bar.

Live Search Top Stories Web Slice: Stay on top of the top stores from Live Search! When you go to Live Search News, you can add the Top Story Web Slice to your Favorites Bar. It also works with specific search topics (like Windows 7) under Live Search News too.

Live Search Finance Web Slice: Just like with weather, you can search for stock results on a specific company on Live Search. The financial results for that company can be added to your Favorites Bar as a Web Slice.

TIP: You can grab the corner of the expanded Web Slice and make it bigger.

I hope you find these Web Slices useful! There are many other Web Slices available that do a variety of things – such as the eBay Web Slice that lets you track eBay auctions. In the next couple weeks I’ll be talking more about Web Slices and the Favorites Bar.

Last week we made available Internet Explorer 8 RC1 for folks to download. If you haven’t already, download it from http://www.microsoft.com/ie8.

To get even more Web Slices for Internet Explorer 8, head on over http://www.ieaddons.com!

Internet Explorer 8 RC1 Now Available

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:48:01 GMT

This afternoon, Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch has announced the immediate availability of Internet Explorer 8 RC1. Internet Explorer 8 RC1 is available in 25 languages for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server. You can download IE8 RC1 here: http://www.microsoft.com/ie8. Here is what Dean says about IE8 today:

IE8 focused on how people really use the web. Consumers want a browser that makes the tasks they do every day faster and easier. The activities people spend their time on define real-world performance: navigating to websites, working with tabs, searching, keeping track of changing information (like traffic or an auction), and using the information from one site with another (as in getting a map). Everyone wants a trustworthy browser that keeps them in control and protects their safety. Developers want great developer tools, great interoperability, and a powerful platform that enables them to innovate. For some people, accessibility is crucial; for some organizations, policy, administration, and deployment are essential.

For more information on upgrading to RC1 – please see this post from Internet Explorer Program Manager Jane Maliouta. Jane provides an excellent and information-filled post on what you need to know to upgrade to RC1.

Internet Explorer 8 RC1 can only be installed on Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server. For more information on Internet Explorer 8 and Windows 7, please read this blog post.

Register for MIX09 and Save $400!

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:35:06 GMT

MIX09 is coming up fast – kicking off in Las Vegas at the Venetian March 18th – 20th. If you register between now and Feb. 13th for MIX09 you can save up to $400 off the conference price – that means you get a full conference pass for $995! To take advantage of this offer, go to the MIX09 Registration page and choose "Register for the event using an RSVP Code" option and use the RSVP code MIX09offer to receive your discount.

Not only will folks at MIX09 get the low-down on the next major release of Silverlight – Silverlight 3 – there will be sessions on IE8 as well as Windows 7 and Multi-Touch. The current list of sessions is available here with more to be added soon.

Mike Swanson highlights the return on your investment in attending conferences like MIX09 in person in a really neat video. Mike talks about quite a bit in 4 minutes but is worth watching if you are asking yourself “why should I go to MIX09?”

If you are going to MIX09 you can MIXtify things by adding “Blog Bling” to your website. You can also download awesome MIX09 desktop backgrounds for your PC. The wallpapers look quite nice in the Windows 7 Beta!

For direct updates on MIX09 - follow MIX09 on Twitter.

What’s Next for IE8

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:30:13 GMT

Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager for Internet Explorer, has posted today on the IEBlog about what’s next for IE8. Dean and his team have been busy analyzing all the data sent in since the release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 (which is a huge amount data). Based on feedback received on the transition from the IE7 Beta to final release – the IE Team wants to be clear about the plan for IE8. Dean highlights what’s next for IE8:

We will release one more public update of IE8 in the first quarter of 2009, and then follow that up with the final release. Our next public release of IE (typically called a “release candidate”) indicates the end of the beta period. We want the technical community of people and organizations interested in web browsers to take this update as a strong signal that IE8 is effectively complete and done. They should expect the final product to behave as this update does. We want them to test their sites and services with IE8, make any changes they feel are necessary for the best possible customer experience using IE8, and report any critical issues (e.g., issues impacting robustness, security, backwards compatibility, or completeness with respect to planned standards work). Our plan is to deliver the final product after listening for feedback about critical issues.

If you haven’t already – download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 today and let the IE Team know what you think. You can also read my in-depth post on IE8 Beta 2 here.

You should also check out these 15 awesome IE8 demo videos as well to see some of IE8’s features in action such as the Favorites Bar, Web Slices, and Accelerators.

Partners Take Advantage of IE8 Beta 2, New Languages Available

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:34:00 GMT

With the release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 a few weeks ago, users were introduced to new features, such as Web Slices and Accelerators, as well as enhanced Search capabilities that make browsing the Web much easier. Users can now be exposed to specific bits of information they want quick access to - from the latest news to the latest weather to search for a new blue 8GB Zune. I'd like to take a moment to highlight just a few examples of partners who have taken advantage of IE8's capabilities in Beta 2.

Search:

New York Times Instant Search - By adding The New York Times as a Search Provider in IE8, users can search the latest headlines from The New York Times directly from IE8's inline search.

Web Slices:

Digg's Main Page Top 10 - Find the latest popular stories that have been "dug" on Digg with this Web Slice.

freenetMail - Let's subscribers check their freenetMail, or view meetings, tasks and birthdays.

And Me.dium offers several Search Providers, Web Slices, Accelerators and Add-ons for IE8 that users can enjoy - mixing browsing the Web with social networking! Click here to see Me.dium's offerings.

More and more new Web Slices, Accelerators, Search Providers, and Add-ons are getting added to the Internet Explorer Gallery all the time.

Today we are also releasing IE8 Beta 2 in 21 more languages in addition to what we released last month (English, Germany, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese). The additional languages are: Arabic, Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

You can click here to download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 today.

For more about Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, be sure to check out my comprehensive overview or this series of very cool IE8 videos that showcase many of the features available in IE8 Beta 2 today.

Customize IE8 Beta 2 to fit your needs

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:07:00 GMT

In Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 - users get some added customization benefits to the Internet Explorer layout I think folks will enjoy. To many folks, being able to customize the browser controls is very important. So I've got some customization tips for IE8 Beta 2 I'd like to share with you.

If you right-click on the IE8 toolbar area, you can uncheck the "Lock the Toolbars" option. This allows you to use your mouse to move the Command Bar and Favorites Bar. There are a variety of places you can move these around in the IE8 toolbar area.

In the top screenshot, you can see that I moved the Command Bar to be on the same level as the Favorites Bar. I can customize how much space either the Command Bar or the Favorites Bar use on that level. I can give the Favorites Bar more room or give it less for the Command Bar. In the middle screenshot, I was able to move the Favorites Bar onto the level shared by IE8's Tabs. Essentially this is switching the Favorites Bar and Command Bar from the default configuration. And in the third screenshot, I was able to hide the Favorites Bar and "make IE8 look like IE7". You can also hide the Command Bar as well if you wish. And for those who like having the Menu Bar (File, Edit, etc) you can right click on the IE8 toolbar area and choose "Menu Bar" to have that appear.

I was also able to move the Favorites button down to the Tabs level - separating it from the Favorites Bar. This is neat because it gives some added room for additions to the Favorites Bar if needed.

Another new customization option for IE8 is the ability to choose to have the Stop and Refresh buttons appear before the Smart Address Bar instead of after.

Have you ever wanted to quickly close a 3rd party toolbar you have installed in Internet Explorer? IE8 provides an excellent way of quickly closing those toolbars. When you activate a toolbar (you can activate a installed toolbar by right-clicking on the toolbar area and choosing the toolbar you wish to have appear) you'll notice a new "x" icon appear next to it on the left. When you click this "x" it turns off that toolbar (by turning it off - it disappears from the toolbar area in IE8).

I recently installed the Microsoft Live Labs Listas Toolbar. When I no longer wanted the Listas Toolbar to show up in IE8, I just clicked the "x" and it disappeared. I can choose to activate it again later when I need it. My personal preference is to keep my browser clean of toolbars. However I know many people who enjoy the added benefit to their browsing experience that many toolbars offer - a good example is the Windows Live Toolbar. I have toolbars installed just not configured to show up all the time. I activate them when I want to use then and deactivate them when I'm done.

And my last little tip for customizing IE8 may or may not be of any value to you.

When you put your mouse in the area *between* the inline search box and the Smart Address Bar - you'll notice you can increase or decrease the amount of space the search box has. Here is my search box before:

Here it is after:

I decided I wanted a little more room for my search box.

I hope these customization tips help you customize IE8 to be the way you want it to be. I guess I'm boring though - I personally keep things as they are by default in IE ;-)

A Comprehensive Look at Internet Explorer Beta 2

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:29:00 GMT

Today, the Internet Explorer Team has made available Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 for all to download. You can read the IE Team's announcement of the new release and very important milestone here from IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch on the IEBlog.

Download: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

Also be sure to read this post from Program Manager Jane Maliouta on upgrading to IE8 Beta 2. It includes some very important information such as how to uninstall IE8 Beta 1 and more.

Internet Explorer 8 comes packed with new features designed to make browsing the web much easier and finding what you want much quicker. Matter of fact, based on my own experiences with IE8 these past few weeks, finding your "stuff" quicker is a very strong theme in IE8. I've discovered with IE8 that browsing the web is much more efficient. There are some brand new features in IE8 I'd like to call out, based on my own experiences that I think users will find very useful in browsing the web. I've found these features in IE8 so useful in fact that I am using IE8 Beta 2 on all my PCs. Keep in mind there are far too many new features and changes in IE8 for me to highlight in a single post. I'm only going to cover some of IE8's biggest new features and features I use the most.

First off: when you fire up IE8 you'll notice that the IE "chrome" has changed from the glossy metallic look to a softer light blue look with less gloss.

The most notable change to the UI in Internet Explorer 8 users will take notice of is the Favorites Bar. And this is one of the new features in IE8 I use the most. Essentially - the Favorites Bar is designed to help users highlight there most used Favorites and other information they want quick access to.

Side note on customization in IE8: Many readers of this blog have expressed to me unhappiness with the lack of customization in IE7. IE8 brings some changes that allow much more customization that I think users will be happy with. You can unlock the toolbars and drag the IE menu bar to a variety of places in IE8. You can also right click in IE8's menu and choose Customize where you can have the refresh and stop buttons moved to the front of the Address Bar. Those who also prefer not to have the Favorites Bar showing will be pleased to know you can turn it off (although I don't know why you would want to!).

The Favorites Bar is also a key component to another new feature in IE8: Web Slices. Web Slices are little "slices" of information within a website that can be subscribed to and added to the Favorites Bar. As information within these Web Slices update, they become bold in the Favorites Bar signifying new information is available within a specific Web Slice. When I visit a website that has a Web Slice, instead of the standard orange RSS icon I get a green Web Slice icon. I visited Digg (a favorite website of mine) with IE8 and noticed that they have a Web Slice available for top "dugg" topics.

I clicked on the green Web Slice icon and added the Digg Web Slice to my Favorites Bar. There, I can click on the Digg Web Slice to check out the current top dugg posts.

Digg is one of my favorite Web Slices along with the Facebook Web Slice. The Facebook Web Slice allows you to stay on top of your Facebook friend's Status Updates. I found this very useful.

TIP: You can resize the Web Slice "window" by grabbing the bottom right-hand corner.

You are able to add RSS feeds you subscribe to in IE8 to the Favorites Bar as well. To stay on top of all the tech news happening in the blogosphere - I am constantly watching Techmeme. By subscribing to Techmeme's RSS feed and adding it to my Favorites Bar in IE8 - it's easier for me to keep tabs on the latest geek news.

When I subscribed to the Techmeme RSS feed, all I had to do was make sure "Add to Favorites Bar" was checked and when I hit subscribe - it automatically appeared in my Favorites Bar. When the feed updates, just like with Web Slices the RSS feed will become bold.

IE8 introduces the Smart Address Bar designed to help you get to where you want to go on the web quicker. One of the most common tasks for users in web browsers is getting back to websites they use regularly. Much of my web browsing is essentially getting to websites I regularly visit and check. With the Smart Address Bar - getting back to these sites is much easier.

The Smart Address Bar matches what I type in the address bar with websites in History, Favorites, and RSS Feeds. It also features an Autocomplete Suggestion as well for whatever website I am trying to get to. I've found that IE8's Autocomplete Suggestion has been pretty spot on which is great. Mistyped entries can also be deleted by simply clicking the red X to the right of any entry. Autocomplete works across your history as well as your feeds. Domain Highlighting is also used in the Smart Address Bar in IE8. This allows me to quickly identify which domain I'm on. If I am on the Windows Vista Team Blog, the Smart Address Bar will show the URL for the site as http://www.windowsvistablog.com/. However, only windowsvistablog.com is highlighted. Believe it or not this is actually a security feature. Domain Highlighting is designed to aid users in identifying deceptive phishing websites. If a user suddenly discovers a domain highlighted that doesn't make sense and seems a little shady, they can proceed in reporting the site via IE8 as a phishing site.

The second most common thing I do in the web browser is web search. IE8 has some impressive enhancements to its inline search box that make search. When I search for something, I can quickly switch between multiple search providers by clicking the search provider icon.

With Live Search as a search provider (the default search provider on my PCs), when I typed in something I was looking for - Live Search offers me suggestions in real-time to help me find what I'm looking for. When searching the web via IE8's inline search box - it also searches your web history as well.

So what if you want to find something on a specific webpage you are on? IE8 is very accommodating with this scenario. Using the feature Find-on-Page (Ctrl + F), I can quickly get search results for something I am looking for on single page.

When I press Ctrl + F, the Find-on-Page Toolbar appears (under the tabs) and allows me to search the site. In the above screenshot, I searched the Featured Community website Windows-Now for the term "windows". As you can see, Find-on-Page highlights each instance of the term I am searching for and also counts the results. Find-on-Page found 20 results for the word "windows" on this specific page on Windows-Now.

Another way to find information within specific websites is to use Accelerators in IE8. In IE8 Beta 1 we called these "Activities" but in IE8 Beta 2 they are now called Accelerators. Accelerators appear in IE8 when you highlight text and right-click on the blue Accelerator icon. Here I highlighted the word "virtual machine" and used the Encarta Accelerator to find the definition of "virtual machine".

If I am visiting a website that has an address that I want to quickly map - I can use the Live Search Maps Accelerator to quickly map the address. Accelerators don't have to just come from Microsoft. 3rd parties can take full advantage of creating Accelerators and users can quickly add in IE8.

TIP: You can manage Accelerators, Search Providers, and Toolbars & Extensions all in one spot via IE8's updated Manage Add-ons Panel by going to Tools and then Manage Add-ons.

There are a few more things I'd like to call out in IE8 I think users will enjoy. Managing Tabs in IE8 is enhanced to accommodate getting to those websites you like to visit. For example, when I open a new tab in IE8, it allows me to re-open closed tabs. For me, many closed tabs were websites I often visit so it's nice to be able to simply open a new tab and quickly re-open a website I want to get to again.

The new tab screen also allows you to access Accelerators as well.

Another new thing with tabs is Tab Groups. I have a habit of right-clicking on hyperlinks and clicking "Open in New Tab". When I do this - a new tab is of course opened but the tab that I opened a new tab on as well as the new tab is colored. These Tab Groups allow me to keep track of groups of tabs that I am going between. I've found this incredibly useful in managing what I do in IE8.

Speaking of tabs, IE8 comes with a crash recovery feature for when a tab in IE8 crashes it is automatically reloaded and restored. The real beauty of this feature is that, unlike other browsers, IE8 does not need to restart in the event of a crash. You could be watching a video in one tab and if another tab crashes you won't miss a thing. It' crash recovery done right. Any information entered on the page such as a email you're writing in Windows Live Hotmail or a form you are filling out is automatically restored.

As many folks know by now, the Internet Explorer Team has focused on making IE8 standards compliant. IE8 passes the Acid2 Test and offers full support for the CSS 2.1 specification. These are just two of the many changes made in IE8 to support standards and interoperability. Because of these changes, users may notice some of their websites make not look correctly because they were designed for older browsers. IE8 comes with a feature called Compatibility View that lets users quickly switch from IE8's standards compliant layout engine to IE7's layout engine.

Unlike in Beta 1 of IE8, switching into Compatibility View doesn't require the restart of IE8. When you click on the Compatibility View button on a specific website - that website is refreshed in "compatibility mode". Compatibility View works on a per-website (domain) basis.

For more information on Compatibility Mode in IE8 Beta 2 - read this in-depth post from IE Lead Program Manager Scott Dickens.

UPDATE: Ed Bott just posted his comprehensive look at IE8 Beta 2. You can read his post here.

I am just touching the tip of the iceberg here with IE8 features. Expect more in-depth coverage from the folks working on these features in IE8 from the IE Team themselves over on the IEBlog in the coming weeks.

Congratulations to the IE Team for this excellent release!

Also take note of a brand new design for the IE Add-ons site launching for IE8 called the Internet Explorer Gallery at www.ieaddons.com.

The Internet Explorer Gallery allows you to find all kinds of neat Accelerators, Web Slices, and Search Providers. It's a great place to start after you get Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 installed!