It seems like it was just yesterday that IE 7 was released. Well, the IE 8 beta is now available to the public, and anyone can download and try it out.
I had a chance to download and give it a try. It does have some ground breaking features. I am not sure if they will take hold or not.
One example is the activity providers. You can right click anywhere within a web page and launch an activity provider:
So for example, I visited our website, right clicked and went to translate. I was brought directly to a translation:
Another interesting feature is in the address bar. It highlights the domain name, so you can clearly see the exact URL you are visiting:
This is the first browser Microsoft has released that is standards compliant. This comes at a cost, since not all websites are. For example, when I went to blogger.com some of the buttons were not aligned, and the subject edit box was missing:
This can be easily fixed by switching to IE 7 Compatibility mode:
It is an interesting release. I suggest checking it out.