14 DAY TRIAL // Following the official availability of Internet Explorer 8 RTW (release to web), Yahoo and now eBay have introduced optimized versions of the browser, tailored to their respective services. Earlier this week, you have been able to read about and access the download for the IE8 flavor tailored to Yahoo. But eBay is also offering an optimized variant of Internet Explorer 8 RTW adapted to its website. Just as it was the case with IE8 optimized for Yahoo, the eBay flavor of the browser is designed to offer an already personalized experience, complete with third-party branding.
“Try out the new Internet Explorer 8 optimized for eBay. Browsing the Internet and eBay is quick, safe, and easy with Internet Explorer 8. Whichever site you’re on, Internet Explorer 8’s new features let you search eBay and keep track of items you’re interested in. Best of all, it’s free,” reads a message from the IE8 eBay webpage.
Users will notice that the Visual Search of eBay's optimized IE8 is set to the website's own content. In this regard, IE8's search box will provide a fast way to find items on eBay without further intervention or customization from the user, when it comes down to the browser's default search engine. At the same time, the optimized version of IE8 will permit end users to leverage additional enhancements synonymous with the introduction of IE8 such as search suggestions, but also eBay Accelerator and eBay product updates via the Web Slices implemented by the website. IE8 optimized for eBay is designed to support only Windows XP and Windows Vista.
“Following the launch of IE8 at MIX09 eBay has their Accelerator, Visual Search and Web Slice available at eBay,” revealed Raj Ramabadran, platform strategy advisor at Microsoft. “IE8 isn’t a good browser, it is much faster than leading browsers such as IE7, Fire Fox and Chrome. Here is a nice video on the performance tests of real-world sites with leading browsers. A great web performance is about more than the speed of the scripting engine – in the real-world, it’s an end-to-end test of all the browser components.”
Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RTW is available for download here (for 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008).