Microsoft yesterday released a second beta of its latest browser, Internet Explorer 8. The latest beta of the world’s most popular browser includes a number of new features including better privacy controls and tighter security. <\/p>\n
The second beta of IE8 follows five months after beta 1 was released in March this year and this time around, instead of targeting developers, Microsoft is hoping a broader consumer user base will test drive the browser. <\/p>\n
Among the changes in this release are a few that mimic the behaviour of Firefox, IE’s main competition in the browser space. IE8 beta 2, for example, now includes a "smart" address bar which remembers previous browsing habits. <\/p>\n
IE8 also introduces "InPrivate Browsing" which, when switched on, doesn’t store the browsing history and other telltale signs such as cookies. <\/p>\n
Microsoft has also introduced "Activities" with this release which allow users to use information found on one page and "mash" it together with information from another site, all without leaving the original page. User could use this, for example, to combine street addresses with maps provided by a third party and add those to outgoing emails. The Activities features are very similar to the Ubiquity plugin released for Firefox yesterday. <\/p>\n
The IE8 beta can be downloaded from the Microsoft site<\/a>.<\/p>\n