It has taken a lot less time for Microsoft to move from version 7 to version 8 than they did from 6 to 7, and now it is available to the public.
Although the official launch is next week, you can get it from the Internet Explorer 8 site now. We will be putting it through its' paces, kicking the tyres and checking all the other things that will either mean more headaches or more hurrahs for web developers - look out for a tweet on the subject over the next few days.
Update 1: Well it would seem that the pre-launch release of IE8 cannot be installed on 64bit Vista Ultimate. Talk about a major let down, and have a look at the (practically) useless error message.
It is not clear yet whether there a version available that is compatible with a 64bit Windows OS. A version of IE8 for Vista 64 is available here.
Update 2: Posted below are results of running the current most common browsers through the webstandards.org Acid Tests. Click each image for a larger version. I'll add the IE 7 results in due course.
Acid Test 2
Click the link above for details on what features are tested.
- IE 8 x64
- IE 8 x64 (Compatability mode)
- Firefox 3.07
- Firefox 3.07 (IE mode)
- Firefox 2
- Chrome 1.0.154.48
- Safari 4.528.16 (Windows)
- Opera 9.64
- IE 6.0.2800
Acid Test 3
Acid3 is primarily testing specifications for "Web 2.0" dynamic web applications. Click the link above for more details on what features are tested.
- IE 8 x64
- IE 8 x64 (Compatability mode)
- FF 3.07
- Firefox 3.07 (IE mode)
- Firefox 2
- Chrome 1.0.154.48
- Safari 4.528.16 (Windows)
- Opera 9.64
- IE 6.0.2800
Of particular interest is Safari being the only browser to score 100% on Acid Test 3. Quite depressing to see that IE 8 scores pretty badly, but good to see that Firefox 3 has improved its' score from version 2. Also of note, is Opera's score, beating that of Google's Chrome. No surpirses really to see IE6 deliver an epic fail.
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