Internet Explorer 8: A Hands-on View
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Microsoft still leads the browser market, but stiff competition from FireFox, Opera, and others means the software giant can't rest on its laurels. This explains the release of Internet Explorer 8. How well does this feature-packed browser actually work? I decided to take it on a test run.
Just because I was feeling a little perverse, I tried to download IE 8 with FireFox 3. As near as I can tell, it's doable, but the directions given by Microsoft clearly assume that you're going to use a version of Internet Explorer. Not feeling quite that experimental, I changed my mind and chose to use IE 7. My reference system is a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop running Windows Vista.
It's worth noting here that Microsoft can detect details of your system if you try to download IE 8 using IE 7, but apparently can't do that if you try to download it with FireFox. Let me show you what I mean. This is what I saw when I hit the IE 8 home page in IE 7:
And this is what I saw when I used FireFox:
It's not a huge difference, of course. When I clicked on the button with FireFox, the next page asked me to choose my country and operating system from two drop-down menus. So far, it looks like IE 8 is only available for Windows-based systems. Thankfully, it is available for Windows XP – so if I like it enough on my laptop, my desktop won't need to feel left out.
Next: Downloading IE 8 >>
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