It really looks like Microsoft won’t release Internet Explorer 8 by the end of this year. In a blog posting of Dean Hachamovitch, Internet Explorer general manager at Microsoft, it has been revealed that Microsoft will release one more public beta of the browser software in the first quarter of 2009. The company first demonstrated the new release of IE 8 at the vendor’s Mix conference in March, followed quickly by the product’s first beta. This was followed by a second beta in August, the version which is now tested by the Microsoft community. Even if the final release of the software was widely expected by the end of 2008, the blog posting did not offer any reason for the delay, other than to emphasize that Microsoft is being extra judicious in giving beta testers time to try out the software and incorporate their feedback into the product.

Among Internet Explorer 8 features, we can find expanded security and privacy capabilities, including allowing users to decide whether to let the browser save cookies and browsing history. In addition, the “Web slices” feature lets users subscribe to content on different parts of Web page and have it sent directly to their browser. Another very important feature of IE8 introduces a tag so web sites tuned to older versions of IE can be viewed in this release without breaking. Breakage is a real possibility as IE 8 will update its legacy layout engine to offer full CSS 2.1 and strong HTML 5.0 support. Hachamovitch also urged the Microsoft community to download the second beta now and report any issues users may face. He said Microsoft wants the technical community of people and organizations interested in Web browsers to take this update as a strong signal that IE8 is effectively complete and done. Therefore, they should expect the final product to behave as this beta does.