Well, Internet Explorer 8 is here (the beta, at least). And it’s standards compliant (well, it passes Acid2). Which, actually, is something even Firefox can’t say.
Acid2 in IE 8:
Acid2 in Firefox 2.0.0.7:
That means that I no longer need to do conditional stuff for Firefox and Opera, I can do everything once and it’ll look the same (such as the fix for the gap between div tags described here). Of course, I’ll have to account for the fact that, although IE 7 has been out for a year and a half, many people still use IE 6, and will continue to do so when IE 8 is released.
Aside from that, IE 8 has some other new things. “Activities” are selected from a drop-down menu that appears near selected text (this doesn’t seem to work everywhere yet…). “WebSlices” are basically what they sound like – little slices of the web. You define the scope of a WebSlice inside a div tag with an “hslice” class. The browser then adds that to the “Favorites Bar,” and updates itself every once in a while. You can then see that small part of a web page without actually opening it, allowing for things like, say, weather updates (from MSN, obviously…) or status updates from your Facebook friends. The “Favorites Bar” I just mentioned is also new. Think Firefox’s “Bookmarks Toolbar,” and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the Favorites Bar. Button links to web pages (like the old “Links Bar”), and drop down RSS feeds. I could only see a couple differences between the Bookmarks Toolbar and this new IE counterpart. The first is the little “Favorites” dropdown thing that shows Favorites, Feeds, and History in different tabs until you click elsewhere in the window (I think they’re called “Explorer Bars,” and they’re not new – they were in IE 7). The other is that this is where those “WebSlices” are stored, which look like a feed button until you press them, and a box with a part of a web site pops up.
Also, I think someone mentioned somewhere that it was starting to support HTML 5, not that I’ve really been able to try that out…
#1 by Asa Dotzler on March 8th, 2008 - 7:16 pm
Comparing a beta version of IE with a version of Firefox that’s been shipping for a long time seems a bit unfair. Compared to Firefox’s beta, you won’t find any IE lead on Acid2 or Acid3 (where Firefox’s beta crushes IE’s beta.)
Firefox pre-releases developer builds have been passing* the ACID2 test since April 11, 2006 (yes, 2006). The first evidence that we have of IE passing ACID2 came less than 3 months ago**.
* http://www.flickr.com/photos/dbaron/126886608/
** http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/19/internet-explorer-8-and-acid2-a-milestone.aspx
- A
#2 by Kevin on March 8th, 2008 - 8:56 pm
I’m not trying to say that it makes IE in any way better than Firefox. I understand that Firefox has been standards compliant for much longer, and thought it was appropriate to note that IE is finally catching up. It’s also worthwhile to note that Firefox 2 does substantially better than the IE 8 beta on Acid 3, and I’m sure the Firefox 3 betas run circles around IE 8.
#3 by bodydetox on July 30th, 2009 - 6:26 am
Internet Explorer 8 is more stable than IE 7 that is why i like it. I always experience freezing browser window in IE 7.
#4 by Mike Smith on August 23rd, 2009 - 8:25 pm
Internet Explorer 8 is as stable as Opera and Firefox. it does not crash a lot like IE7.
#5 by Marlon on January 9th, 2010 - 10:36 pm
Internet Explorer 8 is really good. This browser is very very stable and i have been using it for quite a while without blue screens or crashes.
#6 by Karlsse on February 5th, 2010 - 1:45 am
i am a firefox user more than an internet explorer user but it seems that Internet explorer 8 is very stable and it its loading time for webpages is faster too.