Monday, January 26, 2009

IE 8 RC1 is Out

Microsoft just released the first Release Candidate of IE 8. Aside from some bug fixes, performance improvements and compatability enhancements, the new version offers a new service that allows you to subscribe to a list of sites that are known to not support IE 8 well. For those sites, IE 8 will automatically switch to comaptabilitymode (esentially using IE 7 rendering engine) without bothering you to switch manually.

You can download the version of IE 8 for your OS here, and read a review of the full list of changes on Paul Thurrott's blog.

One interesting note: for some reason, this version of IE 8 will not work in Windows 7 Beta. Microsoft acknowleged this situation, but did not explain it. If you're using 7 right now (meaning you're using beta 2 of IE 8 that came pre-installed), you'll have to wait for the final release (although I assume it will be pushed on you regardless of your wishes).

One final note: this post was writte on IE 8 RC1. It is much faster, but the text cursor misses the actual text - it's either one space behind or ahead the character I'm typing. I wonder if this is a bug, a feature, or incompatabilty with the Blogger site...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even I saw this cursor issue. And its there even in other M$ apps like Outlook, post installation of IE8 RC1.

:-(

Traveling Tech Guy said...

Absolutely. I have the same problem in Live Mail Desktop and Live Messenger. I wonder if it's a new font, or a new rendering mechanism that screws it up. I hope it gets fixed by the final release.

NAEZ said...

Too bad IE 8 still only gets a 20/100 on the Acid 3 test, when Chrome and Safari (and other WebKit browsers) are getting 100/100.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid3#Browsers_which_do_not_pass

Disappointing, Microsoft. The open source community is outdoing the largest software company in the world when it comes to standards/best practices!

Traveling Tech Guy said...

Yes, well, I'm afraid IE8 is old news. Not only is it the slowest and less compliant of the browsers out there, but it also looks like it hasn't been renovated since IE6. Once the EU gets its way and will not come pre-installed with the OS, Microsoft stands to lose a huge chunk of the browser market. Bear in mind they'll still retain the corporate chunk for a long time to come.