New features give IE 8 a better look, better security, and better conformance to Web standards, but the revised browser is still playing catch-up with Firefox.

Microsoft's updated browser, Internet Explorer 8, promises an assortment of new features, with the goals of making Web browsing with IE safer, easier, and more compatible with Net standards. We looked at Beta 2. On the surface, IE 8 seems to be a lot like IE 7, but Microsoft has made a good number of changes. However, you may have seen some of the new features in its no-longer-upstart competitor, Mozilla Firefox 3.

If you accidentally close a browser window in IE 8, you can opt to restore it when you reopen the program (just as you can in Firefox). But IE 8 will group related tabs together using color coding. If you open a link from pcworld.com in a new tab, for example, it will open adjacent to the original tab, and the tabs themselves will have a matching color. You can move tabs from one group to another, but if you have three unrelated pages open, you cannot create a group out of them.

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Firefox 3.0 is a disaster. If I am forced to choose between that buggy, wretched browser and IE, I'll take IE, which I haven't used for years.

LurkeyLou wrote (View Post): › Billthebookguy, it's taken me a few weeks to get used to FF 3.0, but I'm still not thrilled - a lot of my plug-ins no longer function. Except to check for cross-browser compatibility during a site build, I just don't use IE. I found instructions for rolling back to a previous version of FF. I haven't done it, too busy - but if you get frustrated w/ 3 & don't want to use IE it might be a good option for you. instructions: http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=tr&comments_parentId=119679&forumId=1 hth!

Thanks Lou. I downgraded to Firefox 2.0, so for now I seem okay. But wow, 3.0 really is bad.