Microsoft has finally released the beta version of the latest version of most popular browser from Microsoft, yes it is Internet Explorer 8. For last couple of months it was a hot topic of discussion among technology blogs and every one were trying to provide as much information as possible from various reliable (and unreliable) sources. All the speculation has come to and end as the public beta is finally out.

According to Chris Wilson, IE Platform Architect:

“This release contains some great advances in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and layout, programming model, performance, reliability, usability and service integration. We are eager to ensure that the transition to Internet Explorer 8 is seamless for you and your audience, and to give you a head start on using many of the new features with your sites and services. We encourage you to test your sites and services, and our platform implementation, and give us feedback!”

Some of the the new and exciting features are activities, Web slices, favorite bar and Automatic crash recovery. You can have a detail look about the new features in Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit site.

Download links for Internet explorer 8 beta 1:

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista

Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows XP SP2

These downloads dos not require a Validation. Many thanks to Microsoft for not blocking these downloads through a validation crap.

As it is a beta version and has been released as public beta, it is likely that you will find many bugs in it. You are encouraged to provide feedback and report bugs to Microsoft.

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