Internet Explorer 8: features & benchmarks

Joachim Kaufmann & Kai Schmerer ZDNet Germany

Published: 19 Mar 2009

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Go to section: Introduction User interface Search and Accelerators Under the surface Compatibility Security and privacy Performance Conclusion

Conclusion
In Internet Explorer 8, users will find a much more robust Microsoft browser. A crashed tab or a faulty plug-in will not bring down the whole application.

Any problems with the new rendering engine results will depend on the web sites visited by the user. But sooner or later users are bound to have to use the Compatibility button to solve problems loading certain pages.

The day-to-day impact of IE8's weak JavaScript performance may not be as drastic as the benchmarks suggest. But why Microsoft is so far behind in this area is difficult to understand, especially as the number of AJAX-based web sites and web applications is growing steadily, along with their complexity.

Web Slices and Accelerators are very practical features. Since they are on by default in the browser, their use will spread quickly. However, IE8 ultimately offers nothing that users of Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari do not already enjoy, and so the loss of further market share is almost inevitable.

 

Go to section: Introduction User interface Search and Accelerators Under the surface Compatibility Security and privacy Performance Conclusion

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