LiveSide - News blog : IE8

Home.live.com: Is This The “More”? Web Slice For What’s New With Your Network

Sunshine — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:01:33 GMT

Might this be the “more” spoken about here? Picturepan2, spotted something in Angus Logan’s vids that were posted in Rob Dolin’s post:

A web slice* icon on home.live.com! Now what might that be for? From what we see in a screenshot in Seika’s post, it is for “What’s new with your network.” Very handy indeed, but don’t we already have something like that? Well, yes and no.

If you have the Windows Live Toolbar installed you will see that also has a “What’s New” button:

So no, we don’t have a web slice like that yet, and yes, the ”What’s New” in Windows live Toolbar looks a lot like it. The biggest difference is that by the looks of it the new web slice (might this also be released in the coming week?) will ~~only~~ feature 3 10 updates, whereas the Toolbar one does 5.

*Web slices are a feature of IE8, should you not have IE8 yet please download and install it from the Internet Explorer homepage.

Edit: The web slice just appeared for me on home.live too, and it indeed shows 10 updates. To see all of them, just stretch out the slice as far as you can by holding the bottom right corner with your left mouse button and drag ;)

Internet Explorer 8 To Be Released At Noon EDT Today (March 19)

Sunshine — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:58:46 GMT

Last year at MIX08 Microsoft Unveiled Internet Explorer 8 beta 1. After releasing beta 2 and a Release Candidate, at this year’s MIX, IE8’s final release will be announced (Keynote).

“Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser — safety, speed and greater ease of use,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match.”

In response to extensive customer research and input from tens of millions of customer sessions, Microsoft developed Internet Explorer 8 to focus on what matters most to people. The security enhancements offer protection against existing and emerging security threats online. It blocks two to four times more malware attacks than other browsers (a study released today by NSS Labs ); cuts down on the time it takes to complete common tasks on the Web such as searching, mapping and sharing, including navigating 15 of the 20 top worldwide sites; and blurs the lines between the services they use daily and the browser used to access the Internet.

Features include the following:

- Accelerators. Accelerators make it faster and easier to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Users can simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, or share it.

- Web Slices. Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever someone goes on the Web.

- Visual search suggestions. The Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 enables rich, real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people’s own Favorites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information that saves time.

Microsoft is making IE8 available, at noon EDT (UTC-4) on March 19, for Windows XP and Windows Vista. There will also be a version for Windows 7 but that won’t be available until the next Windows 7 version comes out. It will also be automatically offered via the Windows Update system over the next few months.

Unlike its competitors, IE8 won’t be available in a Macintosh version, but according to Walter S. Mossberg (All Things Digital) it works fine on a Mac that is running Windows alongside the Mac’s own operating system.

Internet Explorer 8 will be available in 25 languages, including Arabic, Chinese (Traditional, Simplified and Hong Kong), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

More information and a download of Internet Explorer 8 (as of noon EDT on March 19) can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8.

Want to know what time it is where you are when IE8 gets released? Have a look here!

PressPass - Microsoft Announces Availability of Internet Explorer 8
Previous articles about IE8

Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate Now Available

Sunshine — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:54:35 GMT

Internet Explorer 8 has moved from beta to Release Candidate and is publically available for download today. Internet Explorer 8 RC1 is available in 25 languages for Windows Vista, XP, and Server only! Windows 7 users will get an updated IE8 with the next update of Windows 7.

So what’s new? What are the changes between Beta 2 and this Release Candidate? In brief:

Platform Complete. The technical community should expect the final IE8 release to behave as the Release Candidate does. The IE8 product is effectively complete and done.

Reliability, Performance, and Compatibility improvements. We’ve studied the telemetry feedback about the browser's underlying quality and addressed many issues.

Security. We’ve worked closely with people in the security community to enable consumer-ready clickjacking protection. Sites can now protect themselves and their users from clickjacking attacks “out of the box,” without impacting compatibility or requiring browser add-ons. We also made some changes to InPrivate based on feedback from customers and partners.

User Experience. Some changes here based on feedback. An example is that fitting more items on the Favorites bar has been made easier based on data about how people actually use it.

Before you upgrade/install, please read this Upgrade Guide by Jane Maliouta. Feedback is welcomed here!

Download IE 8 RC1

Auto Suggest, new in IE 8 with Search Providers (and coming to Live.com?)

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:07:00 GMT

IE 8 Beta 2 just came out today, and one of the interesting new features comes in the search bar, in the form of Auto Suggest. We’ve seen these types of suggestions to searches before, most commonly included in toolbars such as the Windows Live Toolbar, but this new feature, built in to IE 8 Beta 2, not only is built in and makes for a seamless experience, but has some great cross Search provider features as well. To start, type something into the search bar at the top right of Internet Explorer:

A list of suggestions drops down, including most popular suggestions and also a list of suggestions stemming from your browsing history. But to get the full effects of the feature, add in some other Search Providers:

and then run a comparison between search providers, or narrow your search to Wikipedia (or eBay, or Amazon, etc). This way you can leave your default at Live Search but check results in other browsers, for example. A really nice little feature, now built in to IE 8 Beta 2. You can learn more about Search Providers on the IE website

And it looks like this same functionality may soon be coming to Live.com. Currently in limited testing (and leave us a comment if you’ve seen it), Live.com may soon feature the same drop down auto-suggest functionality, depending on the feedback they receive from their limited flights of this new feature:

I’ve always liked these auto suggest features, but never liked having to install a toolbar to get them, so I’m looking forward to trying it out in IE 8, and looking for it on Live.com.

One additional note on IE 8 (thanks for the tip, Chuck!), this from the XP download release notes:

Windows Live Mail

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 and Windows Live Mail are currently incompatible. If you install Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, Windows Live Mail will crash when you create or reply to an e-mail message. No workaround is currently available.

Not good news for XP/Live Mail/IE users. The note is not included in the Vista version of the release notes.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Is Out

ScottIsAFool — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:20:02 GMT

The IE team blog has just posted that IE8b2 is now out. Lots of goodness in this new build:

We focused our work around three themes: everyday browsing (the things that real people do all the time), safety (the term most people use for what we’ve called ‘trustworthy’ in previous posts), and the platform (the focus of Beta 1, how developers around the world will build the next billion web pages and the next waves of great services).

Check out the IE team blog post as they go into so much more detail about what’s new.

Download links: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/worldwide-sites.aspx

Save the Developers! Stop Using Internet Explorer 6

Sunshine — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:12:00 GMT

Because a large population is still using IE6 and web developers are struggling to get their sites IE6 compliant, Ron Goff and Kevin Thompson of the Conveyor Group started a campaign:

Save The Developers - Say No to IE 6

Our current campaign focuses on assisting users in upgrading their Internet Explorer 6 web browser. This campaign will result in former IE 6 users having a more enjoyable experience on the web while (hopefully) creating a less stressful and complicated environment for web developers by hastening the retirement of an outdated browser.

If you'd like to support our cause, you may do so by going door to door urging the inhabitants of your town to upgrade their browsers. Alternatively, you can place a call to our browser detection/upgrade recommendation script on your site to show your support.

This script will show a pop-down window on your site when someone uses IE 6 to view it.

Clicking on this pop-down will bring you to the Save The Developers website where you can choose which browser you'd like to use instead.

Erick Schonfeld over at TechCrunch reports::

Even though the more recent version of Microsoft’s browser, IE7, has been around for more than two years, IE6 still represents 31 percent of all browsers out there (versus only 22 percent for IE7 and 36.5 percent for Firefox). This upgrade lag is simply unacceptable—to programmers, that is, who find it a real pain to make sure their Web apps work on five different browsers. Not only that, but IE6 supports some non-standard features and functions that are not compatible with other browsers. The security vulnerabilities aren’t too much fun either.

These statistics are provided by w3schools. Let's take a look at how these are here on LiveSide:

Those stats are from the past month (February/March). As you can see it doesn't differ much from the W3schools findings (IE 54,4% total in February), IE still most used followed by FF, be it that IE is taking an even larger share here. But from that percentage the majority is using IE7, not IE6.

So why haven't people upgraded to IE7? For a part it will be because IE7 will not run on their OS, but why didn't those who could?

...(read more)

MIX 08 - Microsoft Unveils Next Generation Web Technologies at MIX

Sunshine — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:46:00 GMT

Today at MIX 08 Microsoft announced/unveiled the following:

· Internet Explorer 8 beta 1: Microsoft unveiled for the first time Internet Explorer 8, showcasing Internet Explorer’s commitment to developers. Internet Explorer 8 offers an unprecedented level of interoperability and tools, enabling developers to be more productive while delivering innovative experiences for end users on the Web. Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 for developers, released today, provides the most extensive support for Internet standards of any Microsoft browser and reduces the amount of time required to bring new experiences online.

· Silverlight 2 beta: Silverlight 2 supports managed code, includes the core of the Common Language Runtime and adds over two dozen user interface controls (such as button, check box, date controls, gridview and layout) that are designed to be used right out of the box, or to be tweaked with styles. If you need full control over the look and feel, the appearance of any control can be fully determined by templates and control behavior can be modified by hooking events, or ultimately by creating custom controls.

· Expression Studio 2 beta: Expression Studio 2 works seamlessly with Visual Studio to enable better designer and developer collaboration. New features include PHP support in Expression Web and support for Silverlight in Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Media Encoder and Expression Design.

· SQL Server Data Services: Microsoft announced a preview of SQL Server Data Services, a building block service designed for developers and businesses that need scalable, easily programmable and cost-effective data storage with robust database query capabilities.

Downloads available:
· Silverlight 2 beta: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight
· Internet Explorer 8 beta: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie8 (or from the Readiness Toolkit)
· Expression Studio 2 beta: http://www.microsoft.com/expression

More information and keynote videos at http://www.visitmix.com

Press release: Microsoft Unlocks the Power of the Web

LiveSide's Kip is also present at MIX 08, you can follow his whereabouts and more from our MIX 08 Page (there's also a link on the homepage at the right).

IE8 Beta 1 launched, links working now

Sunshine — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:17:00 GMT

IE 8 Beta 1 just launched.

Download page:

Related Resources

IE 8 Beta coming soon - Download pages up now (links not working

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:29:29 GMT

Well we're here in Las Vegas (more on that later), getting ready for Mix to officially start with the keynote this morning, and it looks like we're not the only ones getting ready. Thanks to LiveSide member pikalu0530, we can show you two web pages up now, all set to provide download links for IE8. Just a quick glance shows some new features - activities, and web slices:

(click on the images for the links:)

here's the download page:

As usual, it's tricky to get posts up from the convention, but we'll be monitoring the keynote, and bringing you more soon.

Big IE8 News: Will support standards by default

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:35:05 GMT

Microsoft has just posted a press release announcing that IE8 will support standards by default, which is a change from what had been previously announced (that IE8 would support IE7 "mode" by default, and render to standards only with the inclusion of a <meta> tag - read more at A List Apart). Ray Ozzie explains, from the press release:

“IE8 has been significantly enhanced, and was designed with great support for current Internet standards. This is evidenced by the fact that even in its first beta, IE8 correctly renders the popular test known as ‘Acid2,’ which was created by the Web community to promote real-world interoperability,” said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect. “Our initial plan had been to use IE7-compatible behavior as the default setting for IE8, to minimize potential impact on the world’s existing Web sites. We have now decided to make our most current standards-based mode the default in IE8.

“This is obviously a complex issue, with important considerations on both sides,” Ozzie said. “On one hand, there are literally billions of Web pages designed to render on previous browser versions, including many sites that are no longer actively managed. On the other hand, there is a concrete benefit to Web designers if all vendors give priority to interoperability around commonly accepted standards as they evolve. After weighing these very legitimate concerns, we have decided to give top priority to support for these new Web standards. In keeping with the commitment we made in our Interoperability Principles of being even more transparent in how we support standards in our products, we will work with content publishers to ensure they fully understand the steps we are taking and will encourage them to use this beta period to update their sites to transition to the more current Web standards supported by IE8.”

While of course this is not strictly Windows Live news, it will be a big topic at Mix of course, and will also play an important role in Microsoft's standing in the web space.

You can read more on the IE Blog.

Microsoft moves towards IE8 beta

Chris — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:51:00 GMT

Looks like Microsoft is ramping up the teasers for Mix08. Activewin just posted the text from a Internet Explorer 8 Microsoft Connect invitation email.

"Greetings from the Internet Explorer Team! We are nearing the launch of Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 and we will be making it available for the general public to download and test. IE8 Beta 1 is focused on the developer community, with the goal of gaining valuable feedback to improve Internet Explorer 8 during the development process..."

Not to be outdone, over on the IEBlog, they are talking about how websites can detect the new browser.

When released, the IE8 beta will introduce an updated User-Agent string. For IE8, we’ve simply replaced "MSIE 7.0" with "MSIE 8.0".

No surprises there then. Looks like this is just setting the stage for Mix08, which we'll talk about in more detail soon. We're hoping that IE8 will help the Windows & Windows Live Software+Services approach evolve, though the "roaming of favorites and browser settings" may still be some way off.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any signup pages for the IE8 beta yet, but we'll keep our eyes open.