Tech News Beats

Internet Explorer 8 is the latest of version of web browser from Microsoft. It was released in March 2009 and in a span of 1 years it has gained a market share of around 25%. Internet Explorer (IE) is probably the oldest commercial web browser but recently it is facing stiff competition from Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

Security wise IE had been more vulnerable then Firefox, Chrome or Safari. But with IE 8, Microsoft has tried to address security issue in a big way. Yes, IE 8 is much better than its previous versions with a host of new features added.

Lets check some of the prominent features which caught my attention:

1. InPrivate: Inprivate browsing feature of IE 8 allows you to browse websites with leaving any trace on your computer. That is no one can track which websites you have visited. Very handy when you are working on a public computer, working in office but using some kind of proxy.

2. InPrivate Filtering: These days many websites, search engines and Ad providers tracks your browsing behavior to serve you content or ad. But these days most first party websites have third party links on their website. So when you visit a third party link that is also counted as your visiting behavior. So there is a risk how this data will affect your Internet consumption.

3. Delete Browsing History: If you want to delete your browser history every time you close your browser then on IE select “Tools” from the main menu bar – Internet Options and under the “General” tap check the box which says “Delete browsing history on exit”.

4. Search: Auto complete, search suggestions and results from local history

5. User preference protection: This features protects you from any spyware or any bot try to change your default search provider in IE 8.

6. Caret browsing: This new feature allows users to use their keyboard to use a navigable cursor on a webpage.

7. Accelerators: Accelerators as the name suggests help you access more info on texts you find on web pages. All you have to do is select a word or phrase and use the blue arrow park to choose your options like map and find more info.

8. Web Slices: Web Slices allows users access to the content of website by subscribing.

9. Suggested Sites, Favorites bar, tab grouping.

10. Smart screen filter: The Smart screen filter saves you system by warning you from visiting malicious sites. This feature was previous used by Firefox and now Google Chrome. If your site/blog is attacked by malware then the browser warns not to visit that site.

11. Automatic Crash Recovery: Firefox has this feature for quite sometime. If my Firefox browser closes when I was checking emails, it can recover back. This features was not available on IE earlier. This is a very good addition.

Read more ……………

Internet explorer like Firefox has opened the flood gates for developers to create add ons for IE. Also, on the link you can check IT professional tools, testing tools for IE and resources & tools.

For more information and support you can check/post your questions on IE 8 newsgroup

For info on release dates of various stages of IE 8 and more, click here.

You may download IE 8 free from Microsoft website

For support on IE 8 issue, visit here and use the support option you like.

Chrome from Google is basically a browser designed for the internet. Google main fiefdom is search engine and it is this regard they have designed Chrome to have more say and hold their fort on search.

Earlier, I have written an article on Google Chrome when it was introduced. Today I will show how to use Chrome in and out. Chrome is quite easy to use as it was mainly designed for the internet user. So it was designed as a light and clean browser. Then lets get started with chrome now.

Most of Chrome’s settings can be changed by using the two options – control the current page and “Customize & control” option located on the right hand side of the address bar. Lets discuss “Control the current page option”.

1. Create application shortcuts: Using this feature you can create shortcut on your desktop, start menu and quick launch bar.

2. You can also use the cut, copy and paste feature from here.

3. Find in page (ctrl+F), save page as(ctrl+S) and print option (ctrl+P)

4. You can use the zoom feature to view larger or smaller fonts.
You can also use the shortcodes for larger (ctrl++), normal (ctrl+0) and smaller (ctrl+-). The encoding option be better left aside as you will not be using it typically.

5. By using the developer option you can view the source (Ctrl+U), javascript console and task manager (shift+escape).

6. Report bug or broken website: You can report a bug or broken website by using this option.

Now lets check “Customize & control Google Chrome” option”

Basic

1. From here you can open a new tab (ctrl+T), new window (ctrl+N) and new incognito window (ctrl+shift+N). In incognito mode pages you view in this window won’t appear in your browser history or search history, and they won’t leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be preserved, however.

2. Always show bookmark option if selected shows all your bookmarks under the address bar.

3. You can select full screen (F11) from here. To exit you can simply click on exit full screen or press F11.

4. You can check history of visited websites, bookmark manager and downloads. The bookmark manager shows the recently added bookmarks and date wise.

5. Clear browser history: Using this option you can clear your browsing history, cookies, download history, empty the cache, clear password if any by day, week etc option.

6. Import bookmarks & settings: You can import bookmarks & settings from other browsers to Google chrome. From Mozilla firefox, Internet Explorer and Google toolbar.

7. Options: It is the main settings of Chrome which you can customize. The inbuilt home page of Chrome is Google.com, if you would like you can change it here. You can also decide what should Chrome do when started – open the home page, open the last opened pages or select a set of given pages.You can also select which search engine to use under default search option like yahoo, bing, ask, aol etc. By default it is Google. using the default browser option you can make Chrome as your default browser.

Personal Stuffs:

Passwords: Here you can decide whether to save passwords or not when logging to websites. You can view the passwords if saved by clicking on “Show saved passwords”.

Form autofill: It helps by saving text on forms show that you dont have to type again by giving suggestions matching the initial letters.

Browsing date: you can import your bookmarks from other computers.

Themes: Like Gmail, in Chrome too you set themes according to your taste. You can select a theme from a huge collection made available by Google.

About Google Chrome: It also shows if your Chrome browser is upto date.

Help: In this section you can look for support questions. You can also use short code F1.

The last option is exit. Or you can easily use the cross button the top right hand side. Other usages like minimize, maximize remains same with other browsers. You can also bookmark by clicking on “Star” on the left hand side besides the address bar. You can click on the plus button to open a new tab quickly.

Under the hood

Here you can select your proxy settings, privacy settings, download location, default font and language and security settings.

If you have any additions, please do let me know.