I am using Internet Explorer 8 Beta right now after learning about the new features it provides beyond its previous version, IE7. I hate to admit this, but some time ago I gave up on using FireFox when it starting consuming nearly 100% of my CPU. This was happening all too frequently and I tried to resolve the issue using several approaches I found posted on blogs. After not having any luck, I started thinking, "why do I prefer FireFox over IE?"

What I liked about FireFox I could now install in IE7 with IE7Pro, an add-on for IE7 managed by a multi-national team, not a Microsoft affilate. FireFox does have a strong community creating and sharing browser niceties that make the web experience easier and more pleasant. Internet Explorer has this as well in the form of IE7 add-ons. At this point, I am happy with IE7 running IE7Pro. My browser experience is great, and when I absolutely need to use one of my FireFox extensions, I will start-up FireFox and run the extension, hopefully before it consumes my CPU.

Since I installed the latest version of Internet Explorer, IE8 Beta, FireFox is that much further from my mind. IE8 provides a number of built-in tools that make the browsing experience that much sweeter. For a web developer, the integrated developer tools are a must have, and for someone new to web developing, these tools will certainly shorten the learning curve. The JavaScript debugging capabilities are great. I am no longer dependent upon my Visual Studio IDE since a built-in IDE-like tool is provided for accessing and manipulating HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Another great feature is how Ajax navigation history is retained in IE8. This is perfect for mapping software where you constantly interact with the map by zooming in or out. The window.location.hash is set with a value to enable managing the page history. This is possible in previous versions of IE, but it requires some work, usually in the form of installing and configuring a framework to use with your site, something like the ReallySimpleHistory library.

I will spare you more details on IE8. I do encourage you to try it out for yourself. There are a number of other nice features not mentioned. IE8 integrates nicely with Live Writer, which makes posting easier.