Software giant Microsoft yesterday took one step closer to the release of Internet Explorer 8 with the release of a near-final "release candidate" of its new Internet browser. <\/p>\n
Late yesterday the company made the release candidate version<\/a> available on on its download site<\/a>. <\/p>\n The release comes as Microsoft is facing new legal action in the European Union over its alleged anti-competitive behaviour and suggestions that the EU may try and force Microsoft to include other browsers in its Windows operating system. <\/p>\n Among a host of new features in the new browser, Internet Explorer 8 importantly includes protections against what is commonly known as clickjacking. The ability for malicious parties to intercept a user’s clicks and re-direct them to malicious sites first surfaced last year and affected all browsers as well as Adobe’s PDF software. <\/p>\n Also included in the IE8 RC1 release is the InPrivate browsing mode which allows users to hide all traces of where they have been on the Internet. <\/p>\n Competition<\/strong><\/p>\n Microsoft’s Internet explorer is still the dominant web browser on the Internet but has increasingly come under attack from a range of new rivals such as Google’s Chrome browser and the ever-improving Firefox browser. Microsoft is hoping that version 8 of Internet Explorer will help it regain some of the losses it has incurred over the past few years. And it is hoping to do this with a host of new security features as well as functions aimed at mimicking the success of other browsers. Chief among those is the new "add-ons" feature – called accelerators and web slices – which is intended to add the customisation capabilities that have attracted so many users to the Firefox browser. <\/p>\n Although a final release date for Internet Explorer 8 has not yet been set, it is expected to be very soon. The final release is expected to be almost identical to the current release candidate version. <\/p>\n Internet Explorer 8 will run on Windows XP with service pack 2 and Windows Vista. A separate version of IE8 is planned for Windows 7. <\/p>\n