Somehow I have managed to skip the earlier betas of IE8, but yesterday I decided to give it a shot.  While the toolbars a little tacky compared to Vista’s styling, the overall impression is no hardship over IE7.  The download package of IE 8 Beta 2 comes with both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions (for those running Vista 64 or XP 64):

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/worldwide-sites.aspx?icid=ie8_asdf123

I did read the release notes and it said that this version of IE was incompatible with Netflix Instant Viewing of movies, but on my Vista 64 it worked fine.  You can always remove it if you have problems.

New Tab

When you click to open a new tab, it now has options for you instead of just showing a blank page:

As you can see from the image (click on it to enlarge), you now have options for that page such as “reopen closed tabs” which shows a list sites you have recently closed in another tab and even an option to reopen the sites you last had open when you closed IE, which is great if you ever close the browser by accident :)

Tab Grouping

An interesting feature they have added is “Tab Grouping”:

Tab Grouping simply highlights the tabs that you have launched of a a page.  That is, if you are on a tab and open a link into a new tab (hold down CTRL and click a link on a page) it will be highlighted with the same color of tab as the parent.  However, if you manually drag that tab to a new position on the bar, it will lose its grouping color.  It would have been better to have tab grouping such as Vista where it would have them in one tab with a drop-down list.

Searching Updated

Back when Vista Beta came out, I switched back to using IE instead of Firefox.  It had enough features for me along with having a decent RSS feed reader built it thus eliminating the need for an additional program (hassle to maintain, I am browsing, RSS feed browsing complements the experience).

When I made the switch, I hated the quick search box in the upper right of the IE frame as it appeared to be just wasted space to me, that is until I started using it and adding providers (tip, if you do not have answers.com added under that list, visit the site and then select to add that provide, VERY handy to have around).  I spend a lot of my time in that box now and seldom go to a search engine directly anymore.

In this new version of IE, there have been some major upgrades to the search box:

As you can see, it now provides suggestions from the currently selected search engine, based on what you have typed at that point along with a selection of links that might apply from your past browsing history.  Also note that along the bottom of the drop-down menu is a list of icons show the various search providers you have installed to easily switch to a different engine.

Address Box

Similar changes have been made to the address box (where you type in a URL) although it does not appear to be based on the currently selected search engine:

This also adds possible matching or related links from your Favorites links.  There is also a reminder at the bottom of the keyboard shortcuts you can use one what you have typed so far.

Developer Tools

Also included in this version is an enhanced version of the IE Developer’s Toolbar:

The functionality of this tool if far beyond the scope of this post, but a few features really seemed to jump out there.  First if the “Document Mode” drop-down that allows you to select IE 7, IE 8 and Quirks mode.  By changing this, the current window in IE will be changed to represent that document mode.  This can even be handy for those that are not technical, when the page they are visiting does not display properly.  Next to this feature is the Browser Mode which is similar functionality.

This tool also has a “pinned’" mode that embeds itself to the bottom of your browser window instead of being shown as a separate window (as above).  I personally like the separate window mode myself.

While there are a lot of other features in this new version along with enhancements to the rendering engine, the above features were what caught my attention.  Microsoft is clearly heading in the right direction!