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What is Internet Explorer 8?
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Microsoft IE 8 New FeaturesDo you want to browse the web like
a pro but feel that you might not be able to do so
because you are relatively new? Well, you have nothing
to worry about because we will help you understand the
latest tool in the world of browsing, the most recent
version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer series, its
Internet explorer 8 or IE8! All you need is to go
through this informational article and soon you will be
joining virtual hands with millions of other Internet
Explorer 8 users out there. So web, set, BROWSE!
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Getting Started with Internet Explorer 8
Before we start cruising our way to expertise lets
first look at how Internet explorer has evolved over the
years. To be exact Microsoft released its first version
of Internet Explorer in 1995 as part of the Internet
jump start kit in ‘Plus’ for Windows 95. Over the years
Microsoft continued launching newer versions of Internet
Explorer and it has now become the most widely used
Graphical user interfaced browser in the world. Internet
based research shows that about 70% of people browsing
the web use IE to do so because of its easy interface,
improved features and the most important of all, the
fact that it comes free with Windows operating systems
with easy to download upgrades available from the
Microsoft Website. The newest version of IE is its IE8
which can be easily downloaded from
Internet Explorer 8 download site.
Download Internet Explorer 8
So I am assuming that you did
your homework of downloading the latest version of
Internet Explorer 8 i.e. IE 8. If not, that’s ok too.
We’ll guide you to do so. It’s as simple as 1, 2, and 3.
All you have to do is go to the website I provided above
and click on “Download Now” button as you can see in the
image below. Select your current operating system and
choose your preferred language and depending on your
internet speed your new Internet Explorer 8 browser will
be yours in no time after you press RUN! If you want to
save the download to your computer and install it at a
later time you can also do that by using ‘SAVE’ instead
of run.
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After
Internet Explorer 8 finishes downloading, you will be
prompted to select a few options and the window in the
picture below will pop up. You can just select the
“Standard settings” or if you would rather customize it
later then select ‘Ask me later’ and then change the
settings according to your liking anytime you are ready
to customize your Internet explorer 8.
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So now
that you are all set with your new browser lets start by
reviewing the features in the most talked about release
of Internet Explorer. The IE8!
Why is Internet Explorer 8 the BEST release of Microsoft?
The answer lies in its cool new
features of Internet Explorer 8 that are totally unique
and unlike any other versions of Explorer. These include
faster and more responsive web browsing and easy
organization. Its feature called
“Accelerators” lets you fish out all
the information on the web within a few clicks of the
mouse whereas another new feature called “Web
Slicing” is like your personal reminder that
keeps you up to date with the changing information
without having to go through the trouble of repeatedly
going to a particular website. Unique browsing options
make Internet Explorer 8 more secure and private.
Let’s look at each of its exciting
feature in detail, one tab at a time.
IE 8 New Features
A Smarter Address Bar
The address bar in Internet
Explorer 8 is SMART and yes we mean it when we say so.
Ever had that moment when you forget the exact address
of the website that you wanted to visit again. Well with
IE 8 you can type in a few words of the address that you
remember and it will match your typed words to the
previous sites that you visited. It searches your
history, favorites and RSS feed for you so you don’t
have to do it. The closest match will be highlighted for
your convenience. A great advantage of this feature is
that you will not land on ‘spam’ pages for typing in a
misspelled address. To delete any website from the drop
down menu, simply press ‘X’. Look at the image below to
see how IE 8 matches your typed words with the websites
in the archive.
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Compatibility View in Internet Explorer 8
So suppose you typed in an
address in the address bar but the website you are
typing to open is having problems displaying the content
properly like misaligned text and images or distorted
text boxes then Internet Explorer 8 has a unique
function called the compatibility view. Click on the
‘Compatibility View’ right next to the address bar and the
website will be displayed in the compatibility mode.
Once you do so for a website, you won’t have to worry
about it again since that particular website will always
be displayed in the compatibility mode of Internet
explorer 8. You can change the settings and add websites
to the compatibility view list by selecting
Tools  Compatibility view
settings, on the command bar as shown in the image. Options for viewing
all websites as well as intranet sites in the
compatibility mode are also available. This issue mostly
arises because Internet Explorer 8 is relatively new and
some websites might not be ready to run on it
properly.
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What is Tabbed Browsing in IE 8?
Internet Explorer 8 introduces
an easy to use Tabbed browsing option with its color coded feature!
Now when you open one tab from the other with a
Right click New Tab
, both
of them will have a similar color which will enables us
to figure out at a glance which tabs to view for similar
content. Look in the image how clearly parent tab and
the subsequent tabs all have a similar color.
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Another advantage of
Internet Explorer 8’s Tabbed browsing
is that when one tab from a similar tab group
is closed, you will be taken to the next tab containing
similar content from which it was opened. This decreases
the time lost by jumping back and forth between unwanted
and dissimilar tabs. A definite advantage that Internet
explorer 8 over other browsers.
To close a particular tab or a group
simply Right click the tab and
choose - Close Tab or
Close This Tab Group. Let’s say that
you need to refresh multiple tabs to watch live scores
of a cricket match, do you individually do that? No!
Internet explorer 8 lets you refresh one or all of the
tabs by simply a right click on the tab and click
Refresh or Refresh
All
. See the image below to understand this more clearly
in Internet Explorer 8.
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What are Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8?Ok so I don’t
know about you but there are a lot of times when I see
the address of my favorite restaurant written on a
website but then have to go to Google maps to help me
find directions or a lot of times when I don’t
understand what a certain word means, I go look it up in
a dictionary using some other website. Well Internet
Explorer 8 has made my life a lot easier by developing
‘Accelerators’. With the use of an
accelerator everyday out-of-the-webpage browsing has
become very easy. Simply click the blue icon that
appears when you highlight text from any webpage. After
that a drop down menu will let you select whatever you
wish to do, be it to obtain meanings of a specific word,
driving directions or to simply look the highlighted
text up on any search engines. The new feature in IE 8
'Accelerators' will cater
to your every need. The image below shows some of the
default accelerators that pop up when you click the blue
icon in Internet Explorer 8.
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If you
want more useful accelerators then simply right click on
the blue accelerator icon and select ?more accelerators.
You can also manage them at any time by selecting
tools?manage add-ons. With the addition of this very
important feature in Internet Explorer 8 navigating the
internet has become faster, easier and more
fun.
Searching made easier with Internet Explorer 8Located on the top right hand
corner of the screen right across the address bar is the
‘Search Bar’ in Internet Explorer 8 . It can be customized according
to our like to either Google, Bing, Wikipedia, Yahoo plus
a lot of other search options are available
since Microsoft has teamed up with all the major
search providers to make searching easier for you.
Visual content in the search results helps you save time
by choosing the best match related to your keyword.
Simply type in a word in the search box and select the
search engine of your choice and you will instantly see a
list of related results. To manage the search providers
select the drop down menu and choose Manage Search
Providers.
Look at the preview
below for an idea.
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In Page Browsing with Internet Explorer 8Activated by pressing Ctrl+F, a
‘Find Bar’ will appear below the tab
row letting you search for words or sentences in a
webpage. You can also use this feature from the drop
down menu in the search box at the top right corner of
the screen. Your search word will be found word-by-word
as soon as you type it in and will be highlighted in
yellow. In the image below you can see that we searched
for the hottest gossip these days about ‘tiger woods’
which was found on two locations all over the page and
is highlighted for us by the Internet Explorer 8 InPage
browsing feature.
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Carat Browsing with Internet Explorer 8What is IE 8 Carat Browsing?
'Carat Browsing' puts a moveable cursor
on the WebPages in Internet explorer 8 which can then be
used to select text using the keyboard. To enable or
disable this option press F7. It can also be enabled
by:
View Menu
Carat Browsing.
Favorites in Internet Explorer 8
The websites that intrigue you
are now at an easy access with
“Favorites”, Located at the left hand
hide on the favorites bar, you will find a small star(
) with a little arrow on it. One click and your
favorite websites are added to the 'Favorites'
in Internet explorer 8 list without any hassles. Even the
RSS feed has been updated, so it is now extremely easy
to see the updates as soon as they occur.
What is IE 8 Web Slicing?If adding our favorite website to the
favorites bar is not enough for you then Internet
Explorer 8 has something even better! For updates
to our most frequently visited WebPages like weather
updates, emails, scores to our favorite basket ball game
, or the item you placed a bid on at eBay there is the
brand new feature of Web slicing in IE8.
Located in the command
bar, the web slice option turns green whenever it
is available on a page. To activate it just click on the
icon, you can now easily access that ‘slice’ of the web
by just pointing your cursor over it in the favorites
bar. If an update is available in that web slice, you
will see the tab flashing. A website that has more then
one web Slice available on that webpage will display all
the available ‘slices’ when you look at the drop down
menu of the green icon, you can then activate one or
more Web Slices.
To deactivate a web slice from your favorites bar,
simply left click on the icon
Delete. Put the web at your service by using the
hassle free
Web slice
feature in Internet explorer 8!
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'History' in Internet Explorer 8Say goodbye to
the cluster of URL’s appearing in your old internet
explorer history and say hello to the very convenient,
very organized History in the new Internet
Explorer 8. You can now organize and view your history
by date, by site, by most visited or by order visited on
a particular day. To change the settings of viewing
history go to
Favorites
History Tab
drop down menu and select.
Another change in the new explorer
is that you can even search your history for the sites
visited earlier. Go to
Favorites History Tab drop down menu and select
Search
history.
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Smartscreen in Internet Explorer 8Internet is full of stories of people
that were cyber robbed by the virtual robbers. They try
all the tricks of the trade to achieve their goal, be it
sending emails to your mailbox claiming to have a
surprise for you inside, a fake winning lottery, an
email from your bank claiming you just won some free
credit or the most popular of all, congratulating us to
be the 10000th visitor on their website and thus winning
a free round trip to NYC. All in all they try
everything imaginable to steal your critical private
information and direct you to websites you have no
desire of visiting. Previous versions of Internet
Explorer had anti-phishing engine to help reduce these
problems. Internet Explorer 8 has revolutionized this
feature. What is IE 8 SmartScreen filter? It alerts
you when you come across a dangerous website by putting
up a red warning screen letting you know that the
website is dangerous. This gives you a better protection
from web engineering threats. If a website you are
attempting to open is malicious, then Internet Explorer
8 will block it completely. Similarly, if you try to
download something that is unsafe for you, Internet
Explorer 8 will halt the download and warn you instead.
You can turn SmartScreen filter on/off
by clicking on the Safety icon present on the right hand
side of the tabs bar right besides tools. Go to
Safety - Smartscreen filter in Internet
8 explorer
and change your desired
settings. Whatever your security issue is Internet
explorer 8 solves it for you.
For websites that you are
suspicious about you can let SmartScreen filter in
Internet explorer 8 check it out for you?! A very handy
option indeed! SmartScreen Filter has made browsing
safer and exciting. Too bad the bad boys of the web
wouldn’t be as happy about it as we are so you don’t
want to turn it off and have them laugh at
us!
Cross Script Filtering in Internet Explorer 8Another great New
feature of Internet Explorer 8 that increases
our security is the Cross Script filter or XSS
in short. Turned on by default it protects us from
websites that have been altered to contain malicious
content. The XSS filter detects these scripts and turns
them off thus protecting us from cross site scripting
and click jacking. Internet Explorer has this advantage
over other browsers that it offers complete protection
to your browsing needs without you having to install
anything! It comes built in by default in Internet
explorer 8.
How to do InPrivate Browsing with IE 8?Using a
public computer or not interested in letting others know
which websites you visited? IE 8 has the answer! Go to
Tools InPrivate Browsing or
Ctrl+Shift+p
to activate InPrivate
Browsing. You can also activate it from the safety icon
on the tabs bar. If InPrivate Browsing is not turned on
and you need to delete your session history or simply
delete cookies, saved passwords and browsing history,
you can do that too. Go to
Tools Internet options Browsing history Delete or press
Ctrl+Shift+delete.
Check the image
below to see how you can activate
InPrivate browsing in Internet
Explorer 8.
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Discovering Menu Bar in IE 8
Internet Explorer 8 - File MenuIt’s relatively simple
and contains options for you to open a new tab, a new
window or a new session. You can directly use the
‘Open’ option and type in the website
you wish to visit without having to type it in the
address bar in Internet explorer 8. ‘Save
as’ will save the current webpage you are on.
‘Close tab’
will close the current tab that is being displayed. Need
to print the webpage? Well ‘Print set-up’ will let you
set the settings and after previewing it with ‘print
preview’ you can print it out using the ‘print’
option.
Browser setting can be imported or
exported from an external source using ‘import or
export’. This is helpful when you are running an E
business and wants the employees to have similar
explorer settings in a LAN. To exit the browser window
at any time, choose Exit.
IE 8 Explorer - Edit MenuSimple operations like copy and pasting
something or finding something on that particular web
page can be done using the edit menu in Internet
explorer 8. Keystrokes to perform the same actions
can be found in every category on the menu bar.
Internet Explorer 8 - View MenuTo turn off or on any
toolbar in Internet explorer 8 you can go to
View Toolbars check or uncheck any toolbar.
To view all your open tabs in a
session, in the form of small thumbnails press
View Tab view.
Other operations like changing the
style of the webpage you are viewing; its source,
encoding and the text size of the webpage can also be
done using the submenus of the view menu. Another
important feature in the view menu is ‘zoom’. In
internet explorer 8 you are able to zoom up to 400% or
custom set it to any value by using
View
Zoom Custom and type in the value. To do this using your
keyboard, press Ctrl + for zooming in and Ctrl – for
zooming out.
Internet Explorer 8 - Favorites MenuIf you want to view the websites already added
in your favorites list in Internet explorer 8 or to add
a website to your list of favorites then besides doing
that from the favorite’s toolbar you can do it from the
favorites menu. You can also choose to add websites to
the favorites bar from here and organize your list
accordingly in Internet explorer 8.
Internet Explorer 8 - Tools MenuTools menu has options
to let you delete browsing history, activate InPrivate
Browsing and filtering. If you close explorer window
accidentally then Internet Explorer 8 lets you reopen
your last session,
Tools Reopen last browsing session.
SmartScreen filter and popup blocker
can also be turned off using
‘SmartScreen filter’ and ‘Popup blocker’ dropout menu’s
but it is recommended not to do that. In Internet
explorer 8
Tools Internet Options lets you
select your home page and all other browsing window
settings just like the previous versions of Explorer.
Internet Explorer 8 - Help MenuLike the previous versions, Internet Explorer 8
has a very handy help that covers a diverse range of
topics and provides online technical support within a
few clicks. All in all IE8 has been a breakthrough in
easy and secure browsing that is being appreciated by
users all over the world. To stay updated with all the
cool features and news about IE8 go to
http://internetexplorer8.net/ .
IE 8 - Related Links
-Download Internet Explorer 9
-What's new with Internet Explorer 8 - Microsoft.com
-Internet Explorer Home Page - Microsoft.com
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