IE8 Beta 2

Bit off topic, but useful to know nonetheless.  IE8 Beta 2 has shipped, and I have to be honest, it’s a big improvement on IE8 Beta 1.  That’s not to say that Beta 1 was naff, it’s just, well, you could tell it was Beta.  This release is much closer to the real deal now, both in terms of features, and in terms of performance.  It’s the little things I’ve noticed since installing last night, such as the coloured tabbed browsing, visual search, and more intelligent address bar.

A couple of highlights include:

• Accelerators - Highlight an address, click the blue button and hover over “Map” or try Right Clicking a Page and Choosing Translate with Windows Live. Check out the new IE Gallery that has cool accelerators and slices from Digg, to FaceBook, to Ebay
• Web Slices - Visit Live Search, search for “Seattle Weather” (or major city relevant to your region), hover over the rich search result and click the green button.  Click it to add a Weather Web Slice to your Favourites Bar.
• Search Suggestions - Go to your Instant Search Box (top right) and type a search to see search suggestions in action.
• Navigation - Use the new Smart Address Bar to quickly find sites you’ve visited before.  The Smart Address Bar searches your history, favourites AND feeds for pages that match what you’re typing.
• Security:  IE8 has the best security features in the market today from its updated SmartScreen, Phishing and Malware filters’, to domain highlighting, to the industry leading cross-site scripting filter so I know I’m safer on the web.

There is a load more information on the IEBlog and some cool videos talking about the new improvements in Beta 2.  I’ve included a summary video below:

You can download IE8 Beta 2 from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/worldwide-sites.aspx