Microsoft has officially released Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), the latest version of its Web browser, adding improved compliance with Web standards, greater security features and improved performance.
The new browser features greater user privacy and stronger protection against malicious Web pages.
“It really is the most complete browser currently available for whatever you want to do,” said John Curran, Windows Business Group lead at Microsoft UK.
However, Gartner analyst Ray Valdes maintained that IE8 has no compelling new features from an end-user perspective.
“But Microsoft doesn’t need to have compelling features. Its advantage is a huge installed base and the supporting infrastructure in enterprise deployments,” he said.
Despite being designed as their most standards-compliant browser yet, some content designed for older versions of IE may not display properly, which means that a Compatibility Mode is required to display any problem pages.
New features notwithstanding, Windows users have shown little interest in upgrading so far.
Irish Web statistics tracking firm, Statcounter, has found the numbers lining up to avail of the new software somewhat limited.
According to StatCounter Global Stats global usage in the first day of launch (19 March) was 1.39%. This is just above its previous day’s market penetration of 1.33%. The new browser has been in public beta testing for about a year.
By 20 March 17:00 GMT IE 8 market share had risen to 1.56%
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