Turbo charge your Internet browser

Internet Explorer is being touted as being faster than ever before. What do we mean by faster?

 

IE8 reduces the amount of time that it takes to look up an address, locate a site you have visited a few hours or a few days ago and compare products.

 

With so many add-ons purring contentedly underneath its hood, IE8 puts cool functionality at tantalising touching distance. You won't even notice you're carrying out the most common of tasks.

 

How fast is Internet Explorer 8?

 

For example, you want to find an address and map. In an non-IE8 browser just count the number of steps it would take:

 

1) Highlight the address, 2) Copy said address, 3) Open a new tab or window, 3) Enter URL of mapping service, 4) Tap fingers while website loads, 5) Click the address field, 6)  Paste the address, 6) Hit enter to begin the search, 7) Wait for the map to display results.

Do you want to go faster?

 

How would you like to get all this information without ever leaving the page? With IE8 and the built-in Multimap accelerator, you simply 1) Highlight the address, 2) Click the accelerator icon, and 3) Select the Multimap accelerator option. Voila! Instantly see the preview of the location in the same browser window.

To demonstrate the speed with which IE8 loads web pages, watch this performance video and see how IE8 fares against Comscore's 25 top-rated sites.

Handy fact: Searching for information is the most commonly performed task on the Web.
 
The new browser also brings a bunch of new search features to the table:

 

Improved Search

You’ll now see results show up instantly as you start typing in the built-in search box; these results will become more accurate each time you type a letter. This function will be supported by a wide variety of search providers including Windows Live, Yahoo! and Google.

Search Suggestions

Now you can type a search term and see real-time search suggestions from your chosen search provider, recommending common searches related to the text that is typed. 

 

Click on a suggestion at any time to immediately execute the search, saving you time and increasing the relevance of the search.

 

Visual Search

Visual search images will provide you with immediate answers from a selection of different search providers. The drop-down box offers Live Search, Wikipedia, Yahoo and Amazon search results.

 

For example, typing “Cape Town weather” with Live Search will instantly show you a preview of the current weather directly in the search field.

 

Redesigned New Tab page

The New Tab page enhances usability and makes new features easier to find by providing links for you to: Use an Accelerator, start InPrivate browsing, reopen closed tabs or last browsing session.

 

Enhanced Tabbed Browsing

It can be difficult to keep track of many tabs at once.  Tabbed browsing is made easier with IE8. When one tab is opened from another, the new tab is placed next to the originating tab and is colour coded, so that you can quickly discern which tabs have related content. 

 

If you close a tab that’s part of a group, another tab from the same group is displayed, enabling you to remain within the context of the current task rather than suddenly looking at an unrelated site.

 

By right-clicking on any tab, you can close the tab, close the tab group, or remove the tab from a group. From the same menu, you can refresh one or all tabs, open a new tab, reopen the last tab closed, or see a list of all recently closed tabs and reopen any or all of them.

Smarter Address Bar

The Address Bar in Internet Explorer 8 makes navigation easier than ever, becoming a highly useful search tool that enables you to just type a few characters and then go directly to the desired site.

 

It searches across your History, Favourites, and RSS Feeds, displaying matches from the Web site title or any part of the URL.  As you type, matched characters are highlighted in blue so you can identify them at a glance.

 

In addition, you can delete any address in the drop-down box by clicking on the red X.  This is especially useful for getting rid of misspelled URLs.

 

To demonstrate the speed with which IE8 loads web pages, watch this performance video and see how IE8 fares against Comscore's 25 top-rated sites.