Microsoft adds shortcuts, security to new browser

[MillCreek]

From the AJ-C website (03-19-09)

 

Microsoft adds shortcuts, security to new browser (Internet Explorer 8.0)

 

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp. released a new version of Internet Explorer Thursday, adding features meant to speed up common Web surfing tasks and bringing the browser’s security measures in line with those of major competitors.

 

The number of browsers has grown to a dizzying array, from Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox, the two most popular, to Apple Inc.’s Safari, Google Inc.’s Chrome, the Norwegian entrant Opera and others. Each is using speed, security enhancements and new features to fight for a share of Web surfers’ growing time online. Microsoft remains the dominant player, but Firefox’s influence is growing.

 

Dean Hachamovitch, the IE group’s general manager, said in an interview Wednesday that the free browser is important to Microsoft because the company simply wants PC users to have a “great experience every day” when surfing the Web. For Microsoft, as for Apple and Google, the browser is one more way to build relationships that could sway other decisions, like whether to buy a Macintosh or a Windows computer, or whether to use Google’s Gmail instead of Microsoft’s Hotmail.

 

Google’s entry into the market last year also shows the Web search leader believes owning the browser can help it better understand Web users’ behavior and advertise to them more effectively — an area in which Microsoft is struggling to catch up.

 

Internet Explorer 8, which marks Microsoft’s first major browser update since August 2006, takes a stab at fixing many of the small annoyances people encounter every day.

 

For one, IE 8 aims to reduce the need to copy something from one Web page and paste it into another — mapping a restaurant address, Googling a celebrity name, looking up an unknown word in Wikipedia or sharing a story by e-mail, Twitter or Facebook.

 

A list of those little actions, which Microsoft is calling Accelerators, can be brought up by highlighting the text on a page and clicking on a small blue icon that appears. People can add new Accelerators to reflect their own search, e-mail and other habits.

 

The new version of IE also adds a twist to the built-in toolbar search box.

 

Remainder of Story

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[lotstodo]

IE 8 consumes more ram than Windows XP (the entire operating system) at 350 to 400 mb, and it requires over 150 concurrent execution threads, making it more than twice as demanding of system resources than Firefox. It's a typical piece of Microsoft Bloatware. It does integrate with Facebook, Ebay, and Livemaps better though.

 

For my money I'll click the mouse a couple of time more to get to Facebook and save the overhead by running Firefox.

 

Just as an aside, all three popular browsers including IE8 were hacked in seconds yesterday at a Canadian contest while Microsoft reps watched in disbelief. The machine running IE8 was also running Windows 7, the newest version of the yet to be released Windows operating system. IE8 may be safer than IE7, but it is just now catching up with the competition in this regard.

 

 

[afriendlygeek]

I have played around with IE8 just enough to convince me to stick with Firefox.