Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 (Developer Preview)

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is a developer preview for web designers and developers to help prepare their websites for the launch of Internet Explorer 8. Some of the new features designed for developers include a developer toolbar and improved interoperability and compatibility.

Internet Explorer 8 is designed to work in standard mode out of this box. However, Microsoft provides a way for users to browse the web in a way similar to Internet Explorer 7 by using the emulate Internet Explorer 7 button on the chrome.

Internet Explorer 8 introduces a new way to seamlessly experience the best of the web whether you are a web developer writing to standards or a user discovering a new online service. Be one of the first developers to take advantage of improvements in Internet Explorer 8 for your websites and applications.

The Internet Explorer 8 layout engine is built to be cascading style sheets 2.1 compliant, enabling web developers and designers to write their pages once and have them render properly across all cascading style sheets 2.1 compatible browsers. However, Microsoft is not finished—hence, Microsoft is seeking feedback from developers working with Internet Explorer 8 Developer Beta 1.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 improves performance in many Internet Explorer subsystems, such as the HTML parser, cascading style sheets rule processing, markup tree manipulation, the JScript parser, garbage collector runtime, and memory management. More performance work is planned for later beta releases.