Note *My First Post*

The Big Question ? Why Was IE 7 RELEASED THIS YEAR NOT LAST YEAR

Internet Explorer 8 Beta to begin later this year

According to Microsoft, the Internet Explorer 8 Beta is set to begin when Vista SP1 ships later this year. There is no information on when the exact date would be. However, since mainstream support for XP doesn’t end until April 2009 Microsoft will support IE 8 to Windows XP users.

But in the same way that IE 7 was released, there will be 2 versions: one that is built on the security settings of Vista, and the other one on the settings of XP SP2 or SP3. More info will be posted when available

Is Internet Explorer 8 in the works?

Who needs Internet Explorer 7 when you can just wait for Internet Explorer 8? According to ActiveWin, Microsoft has already been working diligently on Internet Explorer 7’s successor, and there are no plans for the team to stop for a service pack. The Internet Explorer development team will supposedly have the next version ready to go out the door within the next two years.

Microsoft is committed to Internet Explorer and is actively working on the next version of the browser. We are excited about the positive reception Internet Explorer 7 has received and are currently looking at market feedback and customer needs as we work on future versions. However we are not commenting on future plans at this time.

How do you feel about Microsoft skipping out on service packs for Internet Explorer 7 and jumping straight into Internet Explorer 8?

As long as the browser is kept as secure as possible, I can’t see why that would be a problem. If Microsoft is listening, I’d like to see Internet Explorer 8 be a little more developer-friendly. I use Firefox because of all the wonderful Extensions, but I would consider switching back to Internet Explorer if Microsoft had something even close to comparable. I will say that Add-Ons are definitely a step in the right direction, though.

Source: Arstechnica.com

They should include it in XP SP3 imo

I doubt you'll see any major feature upgrades in XP service pack 3, including IE8. Supposedly it will run on XP SP3, but only if IE8 releases before July 2009 (when XP goes into extended support), would be my guess.

Ummm, it WAS released last year. IE7 was released sometime in Sept 06.

I wouldn't skip IE7 for IE8 for security reasons. Why wouldn't you. Tabbed browsing makes a whole lot of difference. I hate IE6 now since no tabbed browsing - opening a new windows, what a pain. Can't believe we actually used to do that.

What they actually mean by that is:

Doesn't have to be that way... Maybe they will release it earlier that they have planed. It is just a M$ thing. They are very slow....

IE8 released sooner than expected, great news

I think Microsoft should first try to make IE7 better, than just upping the version number. As a webdesigner I normally support current an previous version of all major Internet Browsers.

I currently support IE6 and IE7, Firefox 1.5 and 2, Opera 9 (people who use Opera will upgrade to latest version anyway)

However when browsers get released too frequent there can be problems. Especially when there are changes to the rendering engine. I was not planning on ending support for IE6 yet, but when IE8 arrives early I am forced to do so

Kinda surprised here that they are working on a BETA for IE8 so soon, look at IE7, took them like 5 years to release it after XP and IE6 came out, what a joke. IE7 was a huge disappointment for me but we'll see about IE8.

I'll stick to Firefox, thanks.

IE8 is still in alpha, not happening this year, not even a beta!