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Microsoft has released the first public beta of Internet Explorer 8 for download by willing testers, which debuted this week at the Mix conference in Las Vegas. Microsoft finally start to put the next generation of the browser wars into focus with a new version of IE to compare with the recent betas of Mozilla’s forthcoming Firefox 3.


Beta 1 of IE 8 is definitely developer-oriented, Microsoft accurately describes as a developer beta, meaning that regular users should probably stay away from it which are typically focused on helping Web developers code to the new HTML engine in the browser.

Among some of the new features in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 are WebSlices and Activities. Activities works in a similar way to some Firefox extensions, and it even opens to third-party developers in the same way. Activities can be accessed by highlighting text and right-clicking, or in some pages, once text is highlighted, a small symbol appears over the text that when clicked pops open an Activities window. nice thing about the way Activities is implemented is that it launches in a small window directly from the menu, rather than launching an entirely new Web site.

WebSlices feature provides an extended way for Web site developers to make it possible for visitors to extend site content into their browsing experiences. If a developer has enabled WebSlices in a site, IE 8 will detect it in much the same way that current browsers detect RSS feeds.

With the new Safety Filter replacing the old phishing filter, which users can choose to turn on or off, looks to see if a site is known as a phishing or malware site, and users can also report sites they suspect of being malicious. If the filter is turned on then Web site information will be sent to Microsoft servers. There were a couple of other small security enhancements in IE 8 Beta 1, including an altered browser address bar that now shows the core domain of the Web site URL in bold, with the idea being that it may be easier for users to detect fake sites that play games with domain names similar to legitimate sites.

Download : Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1