Finally, I’m very pleased to share that Internet Explorer Version 8, is now finally available for download. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/worldwide-sites.aspx

Hopefully this will mark the end of so many design issues with the previous versions of Internet Explorer, that up until now, has had it’s own methods on how to display content (which largely goes against anything that the ‘World Wide Web Consortium’ have agreed).

Most used browser

As Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still the most used browser on the internet, the problem for web designers for many years has been to develop a website that looks good, adheres to the accessibility standards, and validates http://validator.w3.org. Then, the designer has to add various ‘hacks’ to make it still look okay with Internet Explorer (Explorer always seemed to have it’s own way of displaying web pages)! Thankfully (apparently), Microsoft have finally listened more carefully to the WWW Consortium, and made a browser that displays more properly.

InPrivate

Another nice feature I’m particularly pleased about, is the ability to switch on certain privacy settings through something called ‘InPrivate Browsing’. As a result, the browser will remove things like your cookies, browser history, etc. automatically, when you close down Explorer. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/privacy.aspx (This is a feature that’s been around for a long time in other browsers like Mozilla). What this in particular means for me, is all those advertising cookies that monitor your browsing habits to serve you more effective advertising, will now be removed automatically (as long as you switch on ‘InPrivate’ of course!)

Well done Microsoft, for finally getting up-to-date with the rest of the web!