Tag: ie8

Microsoft withdraws controversial vomit advert

Microsoft has pulled an online advert from its dedicated Internet Explorer 8 website, Browser for the Better, after it sparked complaints from some viewers.

In the advert a wife looks on her husband’s laptop and vomits after seeing his browsing history. By the looks of it she had just finished off a bowl of custard. The husband then slips on her vomit whilst Dean Cain – yep, Superman Dean Cain – enters and explains how the whole situation could have been avoided with IE8’s private browsing feature.

Microsoft said the ad was supposed to be “tongue-in-cheek”. They said: “While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it.”

You can, unsurprisingly, still watch the advert on YouTube. Enjoy:

(via Brand Republic)

Paul Lamkin Internet

Internet Explorer 8 release candidate now available

ie8-logo.png

Internet Explorer’s been in beta for a while now – nearly six months – so it’s nice to see that it’s finally made its way into a release candidate form. If you’re bored of the Windows 7 beta already, then why not give it a spin?

Since we last reported on it, the ‘compatibility mode’ has become automatic – switching whenever the IE8 engine can’t render a page properly, rather than having to be triggered on demand. There’s also built-in clickjacking prevention, and Microsoft has updated the InPrivate (porn) mode and the filtering system.

Duncan Geere Internet, Software

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is out – 5 reasons why you should try it

ie8-logo.png

The biggest news this morning (that doesn’t relate to a German trade show) is that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is out. It’s still a developer’s preview version, but it seems stable enough for consumers to test. I’ll cut to the chase – you can get it here.

Internet Explorer is still used by a whopping 73% of internet users, and 47% of Tech Digest readers (42% Firefox, 7% Safari, 4% other, in case you were wondering). Why do so many people use it? Well, almost certainly because it comes as standard on Windows machines. Many people can’t be bothered to change the default. At one point in 2003, IE had 95% market share.

A little history, then. IE6, released in 2001, was a big pile of awful. It was insecure and heavily criticised, which let Firefox (and Apple, too) take quite a big chunk of market share. IE7 was playing catchup, adding tabs and better security, but IE8 looks game-changing, and a strong challenger for Firefox 3.0. Click over the jump to find out why…

Duncan Geere Internet, Software, Top Fives