Microsoft releases IE8 Beta 1

Finally reworked those web apps to be fully compatible with Internet Explorer 7? Good, because here comes IE8. Earlier this week, Microsoft posted Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 on its website, in order to offer a sneak peek to developers. The beta is available for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 and can be downloaded by anyone, not just developers. Among the revamped features are a new Favorites bar, an improved antiphishing filter and automatic crash recovery (a la Firefox). IE8 also will bring a number of brand new features like "WebSlices" (basically a clone of the "Web Clip" feature seen in OS X Leopard) and "Activities," which will allow users to create their own mashups. Though it should go without saying, this is beta software, so exercise caution when installing and running it on your system.

For more on the beta:
- see this ComputerWorld article