IE8 Beta 1 is Released
I had been under the impression that the techbeta for IE8 was going to be closed. Apparently, this was wrong information on my part. With the Mix08 conference occurring today, the first beta of IE8 is now available. You can find a list of features on the Microsoft site.
You can get the Vista version here and the XP version here, if you are so inclined. I plan on taking a look at it in some detail and comparing it to the feature set that I know from IE8.
With the release of this today, there are also videos discussing IE8 or demoing it from various members of the IE team. They are in Windows formats but Videolan can play them if you aren’t on a Windows machine.
- Mix08 Keynote with Ray Ozzie and Dean Hachamovitch
- First Look at IE8
- Jane Kim explains Web Slices.
- Chris Wilson speaks on IE8 for Developers
Below are some screenshots from XP that I quickly took. Please click on them for the full sized image for the full browser shots. I did note that if you select the “Emulate IE7″ button, you need to completely restart the browser.
IE8 First Run Prompt
IE8 First Run Screen (note “Emulate IE7 button”)
Note from First Run page on IE7 Emulation
IE8 doing the Acid2 Test (run by me)
IE7 doing Acid3 Test (MSXML 3.0 prompts the first time it is used)
IE8 doing Acid3 test after accepting prompt (17?! Firefox 3 gets 66 so far…)
Update: I’ve added the CSS3 Selector Test as well:
March 5th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Could you include a screenshot of the CSS3 selector test? (click my name for the link)
March 5th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I see IE8 highlights the TLD-domain. The nightly’s of Firefox have done something similar, but it was dropped after people where heavily complaining about the readability of the URL’s. The subdomain was almost invisible for a lot of people. So I’m a bit surprised to see it pop-up in the IE8 beta now.
But a least a try from MS to finally pick up with the standards and that’s a thing to encourage. ;)
March 5th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Nice examination. Have you tried Daniel’s CSS3 test suite?
March 5th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I’ve added a screenshot of the CSS3 Selector test.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
progress
yay
March 5th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Acid 2 Test here:
http://acid2.acidtests.org/
Fails with IE8?!
What’s going on?
March 5th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I saw some weirdness in Firefox 3 the first time I used that link. I think that there may be a server issue.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
great links, thx
March 5th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
[...] observations from Al Billings, The Register; more [...]
March 7th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
[...] IE8 Beta 1 is Released [...]