IT WAS only a matter of time before Google ventured into the browser market. Now that it has, the open source Google Chrome (beta) is the result. After all, Google’s entire universe is the World Wide Web and an indigenous browser was only the next logical step. Not surprisingly, rival Microsoft, already competing with Mozilla Firefox and Opera in the browser arena, was forced to release a Beta version of Internet Explorer 8, with improvements and better stability. But, interestingly Chrome not only threatens IE’s market share, but also that of Firefox, which Google financed these last few years to take on Microsoft.

However, both Chrome and IE 8 are similar in one aspect. Each puts the user firmly into the parent company’s universe. While websites connected to the Microsoft domain, Facebook, Live, Hotmail etc load faster in IE 8, Chrome handles the Google gang of Gmail, Orkut, Google Maps a lot quicker.

While the new IE 8 claims to pack new features, it will not take too long for Firefox to release an add-on with the same features. And with Chrome and Firefox in the open source domain, they will still retain the customisation advantage over IE 8. With the two new releases and Firefox’s ever-growing popularity, the browser wars have just reloaded.

INTERNET EXPLORER 8
Downloading and installation: The 15.9 mb IE 8 setup file download took around 22 minutes on a 256 kbps broadband Internet connection after which it took a while longer to instal. IE 8 first scans for malicious software and then requires some update downloads and finally a systems restart for the user to begin surfing the web. Strangely enough, if express settings are used during the installation, IE 8 sets up Google as the preferred search engine and not Microsoft’s own Live search.
New features: IE 8 does not seem different from the earlier IE 7 user interface, but packs some new features including colour-coded tabs, activities, webslices, improvised phishing protection and new malware protection, a new favourites bar, automatic crash recovery and ‘in private’ browsing. Thankfully, IE 8 comes bundled with an “emulate IE 7” feature, which helps render pages as IE 7 does, as several pages are not yet capable of rendering pages for IE 8.
Colour-coded tabs: These improve the overall customer experience by inter-relating web pages. If you click on a link on one page, a new tab will open up right next to it and both tabs will be of the same colour, allowing users to easily identify the pages they are viewing. The new favourites bar is a one-stop access to not only the favourite links, but RSS feeds and webslices as well.
Webslices: This is by far IE 8’s best gift to the Net. As the name implies, a webslice is a piece of a website, which once subscribed to appears on the favourties bar. In essence, Webslices allows users to subscribe to content within a particular website, much like feeds. IE 8 automatically keeps track of the subscribed slices within a page and updates the information on the favourites bar on top of the browser.
Activities: Another innovation is the Activities or Accelerators feature, which adds to the IE 8 advantage. Activities gives users immediate information about online services that they use the most, be it maps, blogging or online searches. For example, if a user comes across a useful bit of information in Wikipedia, just highlight the text, right click and immediately blog the entry. The tool even allows users to immediately translate the highlighted text or get a definition from an encyclopaedia or dictionary.
Enhanced security: The IE 8 also boasts of improvised phishing filters and malware protection. While version 8 comes fully equipped with a safety filter to prevent phishing, the version also includes malware scanning, in which IE 8 actively scans a downloading webpage for malicious and harmful content. Here, IE 8 throws up a warning pop up where a user can either block the threat or allow it.
Crash recovery: Microsoft has adopted the recovery feature from Firefox, dubbed automatic crash recovery. Unlike Firefox, in which the whole browser crashes and is then recovered, in IE 8 only the misbehaving tab crashes.
In private: Finally, IE 8 has added an ‘in private’ browsing option, which allows reasonably anonymous surfing. In this mode, IE 8 suspends browsing history, cookies and other identifying information. The feature is particularly useful when surfing in an Internet café or on a public network.

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