Stealthy IE8 Reaches Beta 1 Make that 2

You can download the beta 2 version of Microsoft's IE8 if you want. We are not that brave, but you should totally do it and tell us what it's like, maybe after the reinstall. While IE Ocho is supposed to be "quicker" than something slower, the new, counterintuitive feature that has previewing journalists in a lather is something called "InPrivate Browsing" (aka "porn mode"). We say counterintuitive, because Redmond has not established themselves as basecamp alpha of privacy concerns. Yet here they are with a browser that lets you selectively keep or delete cookies. Also, for the rest of today, up is down, black is white. [UPDATE:] Alert reader Bilco tips us off that XP service pack 3 may lock in IE8, so once it's installed, you're stuck with it. Now, that's more like the Microsoft we know and love. Of course a beta install should be permanent.

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This is Beta 2. Beta 1 was developer-focused and came out several months ago.

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All the accolades MicroSoft has been getting for this feature are well deserved! I'm grateful that MicroSoft has finally invented the private browsing mode that Safari has been employing for a while now... just like MicroSoft invented the tabbed browsing that Firefox was using long before. I can't wait until MicroSoft invents virtual desktops... that would be awesome!

For all the hate, IE8 does suck less than prior versions in a lot of ways. It's not perfect, but at least the Javascript interpreter is close to being on par with FF (still WAY slower than Safari though). Whether you use them or not, realize IE is still king of the castle, so them making improvements is going to have more impact with the non-savvy crowd than a million improvements to FF.

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