Ok, the title might be misleading considering Internet Explorer (IE) has the largest market share in the internet browser world. Depending on where you get your browser stats, IE has around a 60%-75% stake in the internet browser industry. Of course if you talk to internet experts, most use one of the other browsers and for good reason. IE might come standard on computers, but there are browsers out there that execute functions better than IE, all the while having better security and compatibility.

IE 8 is in the second phase of its beta, and things are starting to look up for the dominant internet browser. There have been vast improvements in IE 8’s security, along with some interface options that weren’t featured prior to the IE 8 Beta 2. One of the best features of the recent beta is the drop down security menu in the main toolbar. Within the menu, most of the important security functions are just a mouse click away. For more casual users this is a blessing; no more having to navigate through menus to get to IE security options.

The other big update is security related as well, but is a passive update that you might not even recognize. IE 8 has added a cross site scripting filter, which will greatly help keep phishing attacks at bay. Cross site scripting allows a potential phisher to basically run certain scripts on someone’s browser. With IE 8 this malicious scripting in automatically detected. Once IE 8 finds the script, it will then automatically erase the content from appearing on your browser. The rest of the page will load as normal.

If you want to give Internet Explorer 8 a chance, you can find Beta 2 here. For those who have forever given up on IE, I don’t blame you. It will take a lot for Microsoft to pull me away from Firefox. IE8 does have its upsides, but even the improvements in IE 8 Beta 2 haven’t shown enough to detract me yet. There’s always IE8 Beta 3 though.

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