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August 28th, 2008, 06:55 GMT · By

Download Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 2 for Vista SP1 and XP SP3

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Internet Explorer Beta 2
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The wait is over. At almost six months since the introduction of Internet Explorer Beta 1 in early March at MIX08, Microsoft unveiled the second Beta for the next iteration of its proprietary browser. In this context, the Redmond company lived up to its promise to deliver the second development milestone of IE8 by the end of this month, with the Beta 2 bits going live on August 27. According to Microsoft, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is available for download for 32-bit Windows XP, and both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. The Redmond giant indicated that the browser would integrate with the latest versions of the Windows client and server platforms, including Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Windows Vista Service Pack 1(SP1).

 

"We’re excited to release IE8 Beta 2 for public download," stated Dean Hachamovitch, IE General Manager. "In addition to English, IE8 Beta 2 is available in Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), and German. Additional languages will be available soon. While Beta 1 was for developers, we think that anyone who browses or works on the web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2. 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)."

 

Since the beginning of this week Microsoft has been building up the anticipation for the delivery of IE8 Beta 2. Although the company never confirmed the August 27 deadline, the release date had been already leaked. At this point in time the Redmond giant is reportedly gearing up for a November launch of the gold bits of IE8. In this context, Beta 2 is the last development milestone before IE8's Release to Web (RTW).

 

IE8 Beta 2 sports a number of new features such as InPrivate Browsing, InPrivate Blocking, InPrivate Subscriptions, but also Compatibility View, Search Suggestions, SmartScreen Filter Web Slices and Accelerators.

 

"If you are currently using IE8 Beta 1 on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 with Automatic Updates turned on, you will receive IE8 Beta 2 through Windows Update. Download IE8 Beta 2, use it – the browser itself, the developer tools, writing an Accelerator, marking part of your page as a Web Slice – and let us know what you think," Hachamovitch added.

 

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 2 is available for download here.
 


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READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: Sampc on 05 Oct 2008, 17:08 UTC reply to this comment

I Loaded Internet Explorer 8 and it screwed the font settings on my Email program Outlook Express.

If anyone knows the fix I would appreciate it.


Comment #2 by: Sci-Fi Si on 25 Oct 2008, 17:57 UTC reply to this comment

Lots of glitches, scroll bar gets stuck, screen scrolling leaves unsightly horizontal lines on page, many websites don't display correctly.

BUT
Still the best browser by far.

Looking forward to the final release


Comment #3 by: Chris on 09 Nov 2008, 09:49 UTC reply to this comment

Huge improvement over past IE browsers. I love the new tab grouping of related websites that are nicely color coded. It makes tabbed browsing even more convenient. It's the first browser to have such a feature as far as I know.


Comment #4 by: David on 28 Nov 2008, 14:50 UTC reply to this comment

I have been using since about a week after it came out.
Overall, I agree with with Chris - this is a great improvement.
It's still a Beta though - the 'broken' websites and odd errors have started to get old.
I do hope that the full release comes out pretty soon with these bugs worked out.
The biggest irk for me is non-displaying of portions of text on pages - and unless you know it's missing, you have no idea.
For instance, on Bible.com, it may seem that you've read the passage - in fact, if you click on the end of some paragraphs, lo and behold 'missing' paragraphs suddenly appear below it!
While it may seem trivial for some pages, suppose you are reading a disclosure on a page, and an important paragraph is 'hidden'?
I like it, but have started using Chrome, Firefox, etc more often because the strange errors definitely wear on you.


Comment #5 by: piyush on 09 Jan 2009, 07:19 UTC reply to this comment

I have been using since about a week after it came out.
Overall, I agree with with Chris - this is a great improvement.
It's still a Beta though - the 'broken' websites and odd errors have started to get old.
I do hope that the full release comes out pretty soon with these bugs worked out.
The biggest irk for me is non-displaying of portions of text on pages - and unless you know it's missing, you have no idea.
For instance, on Bible.com, it may seem that you've read the passage - in fact, if you click on the end of some paragraphs, lo and behold 'missing' paragraphs suddenly appear below it!
While it may seem trivial for some pages, suppose you are reading a disclosure on a page, and an important paragraph is 'hidden'?
I like it, but have started using Chrome, Firefox, etc more often because the strange errors definitely wear on you.


Comment #6 by: monu on 20 Mar 2009, 13:01 UTC reply to this comment

I like it, but have started using Chrome, Firefox, etc more often because the strange errors definitely looms large


Comment #7 by: Vi on 11 May 2009, 16:26 UTC reply to this comment

I think IE8 is horrid. The functionality is disgraceful. I no longer can access my favorites and if I dare click to add to favorites it crashes, period. Web Slice junk is not working properly either so what an improvement all of this has been, yeah right! Highlight and right click and it does not offer the favorites option and I do not want to blog what I want to save, nor do I want to email what I want to save, map, search, translate or accelerate either. And if I am misunderstanding how to use web slice, then they should have better instructions on use, like maybe a drop-down like they do for everything else to show step by step for each new item we now have to add to get this piece of junk to do anything. At least before all you had to do was right click and choose and then add to favorites or the drop-down on the toolbar and you were done. I constantly get the blue screen of death now all over the place and for no reason of anything I am doing. It just randomly ups and crashes. I run my cleaners at the end of the days and then I shut shut the monitor and go to bed. I get up and the computer has recovered from a serious error while no one has done anything to cause it as usual. Gotta love it, not! This is a piece of garbage program and to boot, it is not in the Add/Remove programs. So, now I have to waste more time hunting down how to remove this piece of junk so my computer will run right again. Great job as usual. Release something that is never finished till it is nearing its end use and then give us another to mess our computers up some more when they ran fine as they finally were. No sooner had a machine that was doing as it should and going along nicely and then to put up with this all over again is just not worth the hassle as far as I am concerned. For the lay person to understand add this and add that and find it here and find it there is burdomsome and I am a bit beyond layperson and by no means a pro, but this is not the piece of cake they or in here makes it out to be. I think if you do programming or the like in any capacity then you have no problem with it for the most part. On the other hand, I think and have spoken to quire a few people and they hate this new concept they is difficult to use and that has cause them too, many error problems all over the place that they never had before this install. It is a slap in the face to the very people they are trying to win over. If they feel that people want a program out before it is ready and that causes so many problems they are sadly mistaken. The majority of people I have talked to hate this program and would rather wait longer for the bugs to be gone and then release it. They stated releasing it early just means they get to hate it longer and are just that much more aggravated with MS for not putting it on the market when people could just use it without all the fixes and bugs that waste so much of their time fixing what they had already gotten past with the last one IE7, etc. Thanks for allowing the vent, in spite of it fixing nothing.

Comment #7.1 by: Joad on 13 Apr 2011, 22:55 GMT

I am very disappionted in Yahoo. I bought a new laptop, which is totally screwed up because of yahoo's new programs. I tried to get rid of the program, it seems to be imposible!! I tried to get help from yahoo, no such luck!! I wish yahoo would leave things the way they work for the majority of us.


Comment #8 by: Johny98 on 12 Mar 2011, 15:33 UTC reply to this comment

well im trying to find the latest browser to work with my windows 98 ME. because my old computer broke so i hooked this one up but i cant watch youtube or go on facebook or any thing so please help!!!...

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