In terms of security and online privacy

Jun 1, 2010 14:10 GMT  ·  By

Here is your chance to meet some of the “experts” behind the security and privacy features of Internet Explorer 8. And believe it or not, Microsoft, the Abominable Snowman, The Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot have something in common, namely a passion to make IE8 as secure as possible, and to enable users to benefit from advanced privacy controls.

“Internet Explorer 8 managed to recruit the world’s biggest experts in security and privacy: Yeti, Nessie, and Bigfoot. As part of the development team, they optimized the world’s most important browser with powerful security features that protect your privacy online,” Microsoft revealed.

At the bottom of this screen, there are a number of embedded videos featuring the new IE8 team of experts, none other than Nessie, Yeti and Bigfoot. Each will tell of its own experience when it comes down to helping Microsoft bulletproof Internet Explorer 8. The videos are extremely fun to watch, albeit more than a year late. It would have been much better for Microsoft to release the content back in March 2009, when IE8 was released to web.

IE8 brings to the table new security and privacy features such as the SmartScreen filter, In-Private Browsing Mode and In-Private Filtering. Yeti, Nessie and Bigfoot contributed to building more protection into Internet Explorer 8, as you will be able to see in the videos below. Also, you might want to visit the IE8Experts website, which, although hosted by Microsoft Germany, does come in an English version.

Microsoft’s Rob Margel noted, “If you want to learn more about Internet Explorer 8 security and privacy features try the following:

“• Keep your surfing to yourself - hide your browsing history from prying eyes with InPrivate Browsing. • SmartScreen Filter - can help protect you from phishing attacks, online fraud, and spoofed websites, as well as websites that distribute malicious software. • How does Internet Explorer help protect me from cross-site scripting attacks? The Internet Explorer Cross-site Scripting (XSS) Filter can help prevent malicious websites from stealing your personal information when you visit trusted sites.”

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).
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 2 Build 1.9.7766.6000 is available for download here.