Internet Explorer 8: What is new and improved with Microsoft’s browser

This is Microsoft’s first update to their infamous browser since August 2006. Back then, Internet Explorer was the king of the web browsers. But with Mozilla Firefox nipping at its heels, not to mention Google’s introduction of its own browser, Chrome, and IE 8 has a lot more competition to ward off. Microsoft needed to make IE 8 faster, safer and easier to use than ever.

IE 8 aims to reduce the need to copy something from one web page and paste it onto another. Called Accelerators, these little actions can be called up by highlighting the text on a page and clicking on a small blue icon that appears. Users can add Accelerators to reflect their own search, email and other habits. IE 8 also adds much needed functionality to the built-in toolbar search box. Users can type a word into the box and a preview of suggested searches or results appears in a drop-down list, and they can easily switch between different search providers by clicking small icons in that window. By clicking on the icons, the list refreshes. Microsoft has also added a toolbar button that opens a menu of the most recent news headlines. Users can add several “Web slices” to keep track of information that is frequently updated. Microsoft is also adding a tab function, whereby each web page has its own tab, and if one web site crashes, only that tab will be affected, not the entire browser.