Microsoft has seen fit to publicly release a beta version of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). Although the main purpose of the release is for web developers to be able to test their code and platforms on IE8,
anyone can download a free copy.
There are different downloads for different operating systems and all available Windows updates must be installed. Ironically, if you have the beta download of Vista Service Pack 1 installed, you can't install the beta of IE8.
After the download and installation you are asked if you want to set IE8 up as a by default install, or whether you want to choose settings. The default settings all feature Microsoft services, except that the default search engine is Google.
I decided to Choose My Settings but soon found that (at the moment at least) unless you have signed up for life as a Windows Live junkie, the new Activities options in IE8 really don’t lead to anything. If you were able to choose Google Maps instead of Microsoft’s Live Maps, or Gmail instead of Send with Windows Live Mail, or which ever blogging service you use instead of only Windows Live Spaces – well then it could be pretty exciting.
The idea behind Activities is that you can be surfing the net and read something you think is worth blogging on. Right click on the page or highlight a word or sentence and right click and you’ll get the option to blog, define, map, search, send, translate (etc). It’s a theoretically seamless integration of online services to the browsing experience – so long as you’re happy with the versions of those types of services as offered by Microsoft.
Web developers can also embed the option for their readers to use these activities from within their own website. Many websites already have options to Digg, Slashdot, del.icio.us etc their news posts, blogs etc. The new activities in IE8 offer even more options, which could be appealing to websites because they offer more ways for readers to easily promote content and potentially expose the website to more readers.
IE8’s Activities may be Microsoft’s way of attempting to counteract the rising popularity of Google’s online services. The crucial factor will be – will people use them? If you already have a blog setup via another service, would you really start a new one on Windows Live Spaces just so that you can right-click in your browser and choose the option to blog? Will Microsoft end up allowing other service providers to link their XML-based activities into IE8?
Funnily enough, when I wrote this blog, I then went to upload the image above from within the website's admin system. The option to upload from the image insert window was missing. It was there with IE7 and it's still there in Firefox but in IE8, the link is gone. So there's one quirk. Another is that there is an option along the toolbar to Emulate IE7. So when I stumbled across the image upload problem I thought I'd revert back and then upload the file. I clicked on the option, restarted IE as asked but it hasn't emulated IE7 at all. No matter how many times I select the option to emulate IE7 and restart IE, it stays in IE8 mode. Not impressed. Using Firefox again.
I am yet to explore the other new features of IE8. Expect either a preview article or another blog next week.