Last month, Microsoft’s web browser IE8 RC1 was released and available for download on company’s website. It is a test version of IE8 and user will be automatically upgraded for the final version of IE8 through Windows updates, when that would be released. According to Microsoft: ‘Internet Explorer 8 is faster, easier, and safer than ever’. It differentiates due to its sound security and safety constraints. Some of IE8′s features are:

InPrivate Browsing:
It could be turned on & turned off. By doing this you stop it from detecting and saving your website’s visits history.
Accelerators:
For mapping, translation of words and fast emailing
Tab isolation:
If any tab became disable due to any reason, just that tab will be isolated, the other tabs of that window will not be affected.
Crash recovery:
In case of any crash or unexpected closing of IE, this ‘Crash Recovery’ option will save your opened links automatically. And on your very next move towards IE, it’ll restore the previously visited pages automatically.
Smart Screen Filter:
If user try to access an unsafe website then this filter will display a screen which displays an alert for security issue.

Microsoft has issued a list of top 2,400 web sites, with IE8 RC, which could be accessed easily but a lot of web pages are listed under non-compatible option. Regarding this issue Microsoft said that we want to test it with the provided list and try to accommodate those pages which would be recommended by users or testers. Microsoft also says that IE8 RC is a pre-released version of IE8 and may differ in some aspects and settings from the final one.

According to some internet resources, Microsoft has shared the final version of IE8, 8.0.6001.18691, among its internal staff and partners, yet that’s not released for normal users.