Internet Explorer (IE 8) 8 (Codename IE.next) Stuff

While all the companies are developing their “future” web browsers like Firefox 3, Safari 3, Opera 10, Netscape (not sure if they are developing version 10 or 9.5) Microsoft is currently working on their new project, as you know it’s Internet Explorer 8, codename IE.next.

Microsoft is still not talking very much about Internet Explorer (IE8) 8 features, but as far as I know new version will feature JavaScript improvements and something called “Web Assistant” (not confirmed) (??? Office Assistant Clone ???) which would help users to find all the needed stuff much faster and more accurate. It was also said, that they will spend more time with layout and adhering to the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 2.1 specifications (hey, where’s CSS 3?).

According to Microsoft, we should see new IE.next Beta after Windows Vista Service Pack 1 release.

What can we expect from this new release? I am not really sure, IE7 started to show some web pages differently than IE6 did (web developers pain), but Microsoft said that new Internet Explorer 8 should render them as IE7 did (or they are trying to do that).

I still don’t think that it will be “a big bang” in web browsers world, it’s bit too late to catch that train now, there are so many great and much better browsers, but who knows… We are waiting.