IE8 Beta 2 Ratchets Up Security, Firefox Comparisons...

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 is now in beta 2 and has gotten a makeover that a lot of users felt was long overdue.

The addition of InPrivate Browsing, which allows users to decide whether or not to let IE8 save their cookies and browsing history, is rightfully getting the most attention. Having the ability to quickly and easily slip in and out of "porn mode," as InPrivate is affectionately known, is an innovative feature from the Redmond crew and one that will probably be pretty popular.

Some of the other advances to IE8 include Web slices, which lets users subscribe to the content on different parts of Web pages and have it sent directly to their browser.

Activities, another new function in IE8, is designed to take the "copy-navigate-paste" element out of browsing. The idea is to select something interesting, click the Activities button and the user is presented with a context window that gives a few options. Depending on what you're looking for -- a map, an EBay item or to share information -- Activities lets you do just that. The IE8 blog also has the XML code written on the page for users to play with and the blog even encourages users to write their own services, which sounds strikingly open source to me.

Another feature that Microsoft is proudly talking about is IE8's Search Box Suggestions. As you type in the search box, Search Box Suggestions begins to recommend different suggestions for sites to visit. So as you begin to type in "Chicago Cubs," Suggestions will give you a link to the homepage of the team in a drop down-style box. But wait, there's more. On top of the text, Suggestions also adds images to the bar, making the process both textually and visually compelling.

Not to put too fine a point on things, but each of the upgrades and additions to IE8, with the exception of porn mode, feels downright Firefox-like.

Search Box Suggestions is a nice upgrade to IE8, but the Awesome Bar has been around since at least June, and that's only if you don't count Firefox 3 betas and release candidates. The Awesome Bar, in case you're not familiar, makes suggestions to users as they type into it. For example, as you start typing Wikipedia into it, the Awesome Bar looks at the characters typed and makes the suggestion via a drop down bar. The difference between the two is that IE8 includes a visual element that doesn't exist in Firefox's version.

Activities, the feature designed to take copy-navigate-paste out of Web browsing, may have just been soundly trumped by Mozilla Labs' Ubiquity, which was announced earlier this week. Whereas Activities uses a context window, Ubiquity just requires the command Ctrl+Space on a PC to bring a navigation bar that visually and interactively links a Web page to a number of commands. The Microsoft IE8 developers talk about being able to preview and play with a map with Activities. Ubiquity lets users paste Google maps into emails.

Another surprise is the XML code that is posted on the IE8 blog and the call for users to develop their own commands to help round out the edges of Activities. Microsoft making open source overtures? Just take a minute and reflect on the irony of that.

Web Slices seems to be an overly complicated RSS reader, something else Firefox has been doing in a more streamlined fashion for a while as well. But, really, there are better RSS readers already freely available on Web that are more effective than those ones embedded in either browser.

Still, the InPrivate feature is innovative and will compel some users to surf with IE8. The thought of not leaving a digital paper trail can be powerful. It just seems like Microsoft IE8 should've flipped that feature on during the design phase of the browser, that way the development team in Richmond could've better covered its own tracks.