Finally Internet Explorer 8 has been released to the public. You can give a download here. I have a few mixed feelings about the browser, (I'm a long time FireFox user). However I am happy that IE8 has been released. Whenever a new version is released it raises awareness and hopefully people will upgrade. As a computer techician / web site developer it helps when people have the latest version for several reasons. 

• Security
  This can go both ways because newer software doesn't does not guarantee its more secure. However in comparing Internet Explorer 6 to 7, I'd say IE7 is more secure. Its also easier to remove virus infections via the 'Enable/Disable Add-Ons' feature - which I love
• CSS capability
  This can also go two ways. IE6 and IE7 handle CSS differently. Now how different is IE7 from IE8? Well I don't have too much experience with IE8 to properly answer that.

The two above features is what concerns me. If IE8 proves to have better security and normalizes the CSS differences between IE and FireFox I'll be more than happy. That being said lets look at some of the other features of Internet Explorer 8.

• InPrivate Browsing
  Basically you can browse web sites and not have certain ones go in your history file. My favorite part of this feature is how Microsoft spins it, they say 'Ever want to shop for a gift and don't want others to know'. Like yea I'm sure that'll be the biggest use of this feature certainly it won't be used to hide peoples porn habits from their loved ones.
• SmartScreen Filter
  Google kinda already has this, basically if the site has been reported as a 'bad' site, it'll warn you blah blah blah.
• Compatibility View
  This is an awesome feature ... for developers. Weird Microsoft would push this as their third biggest feature. Essentially this will emulate an older web browser if you are having display issues. For example if the page was written for IE6 and it looks weird in IE8 you can emulate IE6's environment and have it display properly. This is a great feature but for the average computer user I think its asking a little too much. People just want it to work right. We don't have that problem now, its not like too many people are trying to view a web site made for Lynx and it looks weird in IE. I don't know I guess its an OK feature.
• Accelerators
  Seems like a neat idea, fast easy buttons to do what you want to do when you want to do it!! Looking at the IE8 site it says 'Search Windows Live', 'View Windows Mail','Define with Encarta'. Seems like a way for Microsoft to try and push their services. I'm sure we can change to whatever providers we want but still we know when something is the default, it'll stay that way for 95% of the users.

Anyway so if you are up for it, check it out. Its not horrible but I'll be staying with FireFox.