IE8 Improves Standards Support, Web Browsing

The next version of Microsoft’s Web browser, Internet Explorer (IE) 8, will boast improved support for Web standards such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while incorporating new features to help developers debug Web pages and applications and to help users access information more quickly. In the long run, improved standards support could dramatically reduce costs for Web developers, who will no longer have to create browser-specific implementations of Web pages and applications, but the transition could create some extra support work for organizations in the short term.

Microsoft released a first beta of IE8 specifically for developers in Mar. 2008; subsequent betas will focus more on features for end users.

Competition Driving Improvements

After several years with no substantial product releases, in 2005 IE began to face serious competition, particularly from Firefox, an open source browser developed by the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, which offered better security and features that IE lacked.