No Internet Explorer 8 Until 2009

Microsoft reports that Internet Explorer 8 won’t be available to the general public until 2009.

The company said Wednesday that it plans to release one more test version of IE8 before releasing the final version of the new browser. The next "release candidate" won’t be available until Q1 2009, missing the company’s initial projection that the final product would hit Windows-infested PCs and Macs this year.

"We want 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," said Dean Hachamovith. Internet Explorer’s General Manager in his ieblog. "They should expect the final product to behave as this update does. We want them to test their sites and services with IE8, make any changes they feel are necessary for the best possible customer experience using IE8, and report any critical issues (e.g., issues impacting robustness, security, backwards compatibility, or completeness with respect to planned standards work). Our plan is to deliver the final product after listening for feedback about critical issues."

He also reached out to the technical community, asking participants to download the beta 2 client and report back to Microsoft about their experience. They should make it clear as to what issues need to be addressed before Microsoft spit-shines the browser and unleashes the final product. "We will be very selective about what changes we make between the next update and final release," he adds. "We will act on the most critical issues. We will be super clear about product changes we make between the update and the final release."

Microsoft released Beta back in March with Beta 2 rolling out in August, offering consumers new features such as Web slices, private session that aren’t logged by the browser, accelerators, smartscreen filters, better standards protection, malware support and more. Microsoft also made it a priority to improve the browser’s use of RSS and cascading Style Sheets, as well as added support for Ajax.

Microsoft began development of Internet Explorer 8 back in March 2006. However the company came under fire because of its Suggested Sites feature (aka Phone Home), a tool that sees Internet Explorer 8 suggest sites based on URLs typed into the address bar. Microsoft retaliated, claiming that the browser only sends a limited amount of information back to the company, and immediately discards all user IP addresses.

"We take the IP address, get all the information that we need from it, and then throw out the address," said Andy Zeigler, an IE program manager. He also said that IE8’s Suggested Sites feature doesn’t record keystrokes like Google’s Chrome browser.

Currently Internet Explorer 7 is the second most-used browser accessing the Internet, racking in 26.9 percent of consumer usage in October. Mozilla’s Firefox browser currently takes the least, scooping up 44 percent of the market. Surprisingly, Internet Explorer 6 takes a close third with 20.2 percent, followed by Safari and Opera. Whether or not Internet Explorer 8 can regain Microsoft’s hold on Internet usage remains to be seen, as Firefox 3.1 is currently in Beta 2 and offers support for private browsing and the