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Internet Explorer 8 RC1

Get a glimpse of new features in IE 8's first Release Candidate
By Seth Rosenblatt, Contributor
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Compatability View is a toggle button that appears on the toolbar when some elements of a Web site don't render properly. It automatically forces a change of rendering engine from IE 8 to IE 7 to keep the page looking as it should.

Here, you can see that although Microsoft's own home page views correctly, Google.com and even Download.com both get the Compatibility View treatment as indicated by the presence of the broken-page icon.

Credit: Seth Rosenblatt, CNET Download.com

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One of the new features in the Release Candidate that wasn't in IE 8 beta 2 was the ability to tailor the Compatibility View list to your requirements. Users can configure all pages to render with the older engine, turn it off completely, or force-add sites on their own.

Credit: Seth Rosenblatt, CNET Download.com

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Internet Explorer 8 brings InPrivate browsing to IE fans. This feature became the must-have feature of 2008, as Firefox, Google Chrome, and others made hay of its introduction--even though the technology is old. Like its competitors, InPrivate turns off memory caching, cookie saving, and other Web surfing traces that can be left on your computer.

Credit: Seth Rosenblatt, CNET Download.com

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This small but useful change in the release candidate brings InPrivate's filtering list into the regular, cache-and-cookie activated Internet Explorer. It's an added measure of security, in theory, but in practice it's a bit hard to define what effect it actually has.

Credit: Seth Rosenblatt, CNET Download.com

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Internet Explorer 8 includes an expanded add-on management window from which you can adjust Accelerators, Web Slices, Toolbars, and other add-ons.

Credit: Seth Rosenblatt, CNET Download.com

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IE 8 introduces Accelerators, a productivity-enhancement add-on genre that hopes to speed up repetitive tasks such as blogging or searching for friends on Facebook.

Credit: Seth Rosenblatt, CNET Download.com

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