Browser War :: IE8 (beta-II) on the way to Wipe out Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, Watch Out!

Technology Dump Blog ^ | Friday, December 26, 2008 | Vishnu Ghimire

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Overview
The first beta release of IE8, which was demonstrated at the MIX08 conference, contained many new features, including WebSlices and Activities. In the second beta release, Activities were renamed to Accelerators.

• Added features
  Some of the features and changes for the Beta 2 compared to Beta 1
  InPrivate
  Delete Browsing History
  Search Suggestions
  User Preference Protection
  Caret Browsing
  Accelerators (previously known as Activities)
  Web Slices (previously known as WebSlices)
  Suggested Sites
  Tab Color Grouping
  Automatic Crash Recovery
  SmartScreen Filter (Known as Safety Filter in Beta 1)
  Tab isolation (tabs spread over separate operating system processes)
  
• Removed features
  Inline AutoComplete
  The option to delete files and settings stored by addons or ActiveX controls.
  CSS Expressions are no longer supported in Internet Explorer 8 Standards mode. Accelerators
  ·Accelerators are a contextual feature used to quickly access a service from any webpage. It is common for users to copy and paste content from one webpage to another, and accelerators simplify this process.Accelerators allow users to find information without leaving the current webpage. For example, to determine the location of a specific restaurant, a user will select the restaurant's address, generating an in-place view of the map. Clicking the view will open a full webpage that includes additional information from the mapping service.Browser War
  Mozilla's second alpha of Firefox 3.1 is upping the ante in the next-generation browser battle. So how do the main contenders stack up so far now? One thing's for sure, the Firefox team has taken note of Google's recent Chrome release and worked hard to make sure its offering can hold its own. Mozilla had already claimed its 3.1 version could outperform Chrome when it comes to speed (and most independent tests show it at least tying). Now, the engineers have incorporated Chrome-initiated options such as the ability to drag and drop tabs in and out of browser windows.
  The second alpha release also adds support for the HTML 5 video tag, which gives Web developers expanded options for embedding video within a page. Don't forget, too, that Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 -- released at the end of August and quickly eclipsed by Chrome's introduction -- is also vying for a piece of the pie.

[PreciousLiberty]

I went to download the beta, but didn’t see a version for my Mac.

Without that, Microsoft and Aieeee8 are losing the fastest growing personal computer segment. ;-)

Besides - Firefox, Safari, Chrome and OmniWeb are all better browsers. lol!

[reg45]

I have four browsers on my machine:

In my order of frequency of use:
1. Mozilla Firefox 3.0.5 (most used)
2. Opera
3. Google Chrome
4. Internet Explorer

Opera and Chrome are significantly faster than Firefox or Internet Explorer.

[reg45]

My radio links work with Firefox 3.0.5 - I have one open now.

I did seem to have a problem with Firefox 3.0.4 and radio links, but as soon as I upgraded, the problem went away.

[jagusafr]

I love it - had to install the DoD Applications add-on to be able to access military webmail and websites, but since then, it’s worked like a charm. Unfortunately, I can’t convince the computer folks at my organization of attachment to install it.

Colonel, USAFR

[dodger]

I also have problems since a recent update of Firefox.

I get an error message every time I open it and bookmarks will work properly (they did not self-import and now I cannot organize or edit them).

I agree, there is little help on the forums, too.

[pallis]

I went through about a month of Firefox and Sea Monkey crashes before I discovered it was a RAM problem. As soon as I replaced the RAM, the problem was over. That was a couple of years back, so I don’t know if the problem is still relevant to today’s browsers. You might want to look into it.

[library user]

Thanks for the tips. It seemed to crash most often whenever I tried to download something. Whether it was .exe, .doc, .whatever - didn’t matter. Triggered a crash.

[library user]

I only have 512MB of RAM. Firefox wants about a fifth of it.

[zerosix]

Completely understandable - your “organization” not willing to use something that works well, too well.

[LadyPilgrim]

I have NO idea what you’re talking about. 80’s retro? ;-)

I just know my computer hasn’t crashed in over a year with constant use.
But with Norton, I was in a tizzy every other couple of months.
I have had to uninstall and reinstall WINDOWS many times....
soooooo, to me it’s a pleasure to use this Vista laptop protected by AVAST now.

But, I have the idea my problem was Norton, not Windows.

Reason being, I use Windows on this laptop and have had no problem.
Now to me, it was either the anti virus program or Windows giving me aggravation. ;-)

I personally think it was the Norton program. So, I’m happy with the program, AVAST.

I have seen Avira, but know nothing about it. And you’re the first person that’s mentioned it to me. ;-)

[library user]

Yeah, Norton is so bad that they actually had to put out a NORTON REMOVAL TOOL, so that it totally and completely uninstalls itself. LOL.

[al baby]

mine crashs daily but comes right back

[numberonepal]

How much did that cost?

Probably a helluva lot more than folks learning how to use the keyboard for commands rather than searching menus for buttons to click. Highlight your text to be formatted. Ctrl + B for bold. Ctrl + I to italicize highlighted text. Ctrl + U to underline. I'm in the IT industry and you wouldn't believe the folks who actually use the mouse to cut and paste text (rather than use Ctrl + X, C, V).

[numberonepal]

Opera and Chrome are significantly faster than Firefox or Internet Explorer.

What do you mean by "faster"? What exactly is faster in Opera than in FF? For instance cached page retrieval is faster in FF than IE. Page rendering is faster in FF than IE. I know this by doing extensive load testing on my code from a localhost environment.

[Big_Monkey]

"However i agree with the post above that mine has been crashing a lot lately

Do you have the "GreaseMonkey" add-on installed? There have been significant virus problems with this FF extra. FYI

[reg45]

I have 2GB of RAM in my notebook. It does make a difference.

Get some more RAM, it's cheap. Crucial has reasonable prices.

[numberonepal]

There is a virus (a nasty one) associated with GreaseMonkey. Un-install immediately.

[BurbankKarl]

Funny how Google launched into all these initiatives and now had to layoff people. And the Google Phone @ T Mobile is such a stinker, they gave one to every Google employee as their year end bonus.

I will keep my IE thank you very much.

[reg45]

When I scroll through the FreeRepublic index page. Chrome and Opera seem faster than Firefox, which seems faster than Internet Explorer.

[stylin19a]

I was scratchin my head too.
and you can also delete browsing history...