A Tour of IE 8.0

In this lesson will provide an overview look at IE 8.0 and give you a walk through introduction to the interface. If you are familiar with Internet Explorer 7, there are many carry over features that you will recognize, and there are some nice new features that we'll briefly introduce and cover further in later lessons.

We'll review changes to the toolbar and point out the location of familiar browser options, including:

• Zoom Settings
• The Home button
• Quick Tabs
• Favorites/RSS/History
• The Back/Forward buttons
• The Address Bar
• The Tools Options

Some of the new toolbar features we'll touch on include:

• Email & Print Settings
• Page Options
• Safety Options
• Help Options

Using Multiple Tabs

This lesson will review Tab navigation in IE8, and your different options for working with tabs, including>

• Opening a new tab
• Recovering closed tabs
• Scrolling multiple tabs
• The Tab List
• Using Quick Tabs
• Tab Settings

Grouped Favorites and Multiple Home Pages

This lesson demonstrates how you can organize your favorite sites into groups and save time by storing them as Grouped Favorites. We'll also discuss how your home page can be more than page. In fact, you can automatically open a number of pages with IE8 starts up. Topics include:

• The Favorites icon
• Grouped Favorites
• Adding a Favorites Group
• Deleting from a Favorites Group
• Adding to the Favorites Toolbar
• Creating a Home Page Tab Set
• Tab Settings

Using Accelerators

Accelerators are a new enhancement in IE8, and enable you to do in one click (or a few) what used to require more user action, perhaps including cutting and pasting and so forth. The tasks include:

• mapping locations
• translation of words
• defining words
• search encyclopedias or the web
• post to a blog or email (and more)

To use an accelerator, just select the text you are interested in. A blue icon will appear above and to the left of the text. Click on this and choose the accelerator action you'd like to take. You can choose to find more accelerators online and add them with one click. Accelerators help you do what you want to do faster.

Working with Web Slices

Web Slices are another new feature in Internet Explorer 8. Web slices are a type of "automatic feed update" and must be turned on within your browser to work. Well then isn't that just the same things as an RSS Feed, you might ask? It is similar, but there is an important difference. An RSS Feed lets you subscribe to a site or blog to automatically receive updates of new content as it is published on the site.

A web slice is really a subscription to a specific part of a website and will notifiy you of changes to that part of the website. A great example is a changing auction price on an item you are following, or the current temperature, or stock information. And the web slice checks are made even if IE isn't on. We'll cover:

• Two methods for adding a web slice
• Web Slice Properties
• Deleting a web slice

InPrivate Browsing and InPrivate Filtering

This lesson focuses on two new features in IE8 that protect you when you are browsing the internet - InPrivate Browsing and InPrivate Filtering.

InPrivate Browsing is useful feature for when you are away from home or the office, and working on a public location of PC. InPrivate Browsing allows you to start a session that prevents IE from storing any information about your browsing, keeping your data and history private.

InPrivate Filtering works different. When activated, it prevents websites from collecting any information about you when you visit, so that you can remain anonymous.

Working with the SmartScreen Filter

In IE 7, Microsoft introduced a Phishing Filter into the browser to help protect users. The Phishing Filter helps by notifying you if a site is suspicious. It can do this by comparing the site you type in to a list of known phishing sites. If you type in a site that isn’t on that list, but seems suspicious, it will go ahead and check that site automatically, too. Sites are sent to a Microsoft server for confirmation, and these servers are updated constantly with new phishing sites. This global database is compiled from information supplied by service providers and from reports that come in from users who stumble upon sites that appear "phishy."

In IE 8, Microsoft has built upon the feature set of the Phishing Filter and provided something new called the SmartScreen Filter. According to the IE Team at Microsoft, this new filter improves upon the Phishing Filter in a number of ways.

Add-ons and Pop-Ups

Add-Ons are small programs or pieces of code that may enhance your browser by adding functionality to it.  Internet Explorer 8 provides a favorites link to allow you to download more Add-Ons from the Microsoft website
 
We discuss the pros and cons of downloading Add-Ons, including inadvertently downloading a program that includes unwanted pop up windows, possibly for advertising.  Internet Explorer 8 includes a Pop-Up Blocker to help control and eliminate unwanted popup Windows.

Compatibility View

Internet Explorer 8 has become more standards compliant, but many of the websites on the internet have yet to catch up, and may not display as intended.  To allow the user to view these sites, IE8 includes a Compatibility View feature.  When activated, Compatibility View allows IE8 to fix these pages to display as intended with the former coding. 

Microsoft also maintains a Compatibility List of websites that have reported compatibility issues with IE8, and you can set your browser to check against this list and automatically use Compatibility View when visiting websites included on the list.

Suggested Sites

Suggested Sites is an online service that uses your browsing history to make personalized website suggestions based on the websites you visit most.  Your browsing history is sent to Microsoft, where it’s saved and compared to a frequently updated list of related websites.  By default, Suggested Sites is off, and can be turned on and off at anytime.  To turn it on, go under the Tools Menu and select Suggested Sites.