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Developer Information Index for Internet Explorer 8

This information index gives you a high level view of the information available for Internet Explorer 8 for Windows, Windows Server 2003, and Microsoft Vista. This Information Index connects you to specific overviews, reference materials, technical articles, and blog entries that will be useful to developers. The goal is to organize information by topic and make it easily accessible.

On This Page:

  • Essential Links and Overviews
  • Application Compatibility
  • Developer Tools
  • AJAX
  • Jscript
  • Performance
  • CSS
  • Security
  • Misc.

Essential Links and Overviews

Release Notes for Internet Explorer 8

These Release Notes give you information about installing Internet Explorer 8 and contain information about known issues and possible workarounds for those issues.
Windows Internet Explorer 8: Technology Overview for Developers

This document provides Web developers and designers with an overview of the new features and functionality offered in Windows Internet Explorer 8.
Internet Explorer Compatibility Center

Make your Web site or application compatible with Internet Explorer.
Internet Explorer Readiness Toolkit

This Web site has everything you need to start developing with Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1.
What's New in Internet Explorer 8

Get coding with help from the MSDN Library documentation for Internet Explorer 8

Developer Tools

Developer Tools in Internet Explorer 8

Introduction to the new developer tools for IE8.  This entry describes the new tools that provide an integrated and simple-to-use visual interface to the platform, enabling fast experimentation.
Introducing the IE8 Developer Tools JScript Profiler

The JScript Profiler in Developer Tools helps identify and fix performance related issues by providing critical JScript related performance data to the web developer.

Jscript

What’s New in JScript for IE8 Beta 2

Discussion of the IE Beta 2 enhancements and improvements of the scripting engine, the script debugger and the new script profiler.
Introducing the IE8 Developer Tools JScript Profiler

The JScript Profiler in Developer Tools helps identify and fix performance related issues by providing critical JScript related performance data to the web developer.

Performance

IE8 Performance

A discussion of the many facets of browser performance measurement and the performance improvements incorporated into IE8 Beta 2
Designing for Add-on Performance

Add-on design can greatly impact browser responsiveness and the performance of opening /closing the IE window or tab.  Guidance is provided for designing performance into add-ons.

Security

IE8 Security Part I: DEP/NX Memory Protection

The DEP/NX memory protection feature helps foil attacks by preventing code from running in memory that is marked non-executable.  This feature is enabled by default in Internet Explorer 8 on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 and later.
IE8 Security Part II: ActiveX Improvements

This post describes the ActiveX security enhancements incorporated into Internet Explorer 8.
IE8 Security Part III: SmartScreen® Filter

The IE7 Phishing Filter feature blocks over a million phishing attacks weekly.  IE8 builds on this capability with the new SmartScreen® Filter, a replacement that improves upon the Phishing Filter in a number of important ways.
IE8 Security Part IV: The XSS Filter

Reflected / “Type-1” Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities are now much more difficult to exploit from within Internet Explorer 8.
IE8 Security Part V: Comprehensive Protection

An overview of the extensive security features and improvements incorporated into IE8
IE8 Security Part VI: Beta 2 Update

This entry contains an update on some of the more detailed security features of IE8 Beta 2
Securing Cross Site XMLHttpRequest

A short discussion with links to sources of information on properly securing this capability

Application Compatibility

Compatibility View Improvements to come in IE8

IE8 includes improvements to Compatibility View that help end-users when they visit web sites that are not yet ready for IE8’s new, more standards-compliant defaults. This blog post describes the technical background and how this new functionality works.
Application Compatibility Logging in IE8

This describes the 12 new Application Compatibility Events added into the IE8 Application Compatibility tool.
Additional Tests Submitted to the W3C CSS 2.1 Test Suite

Discusses the 2,524 new test cases provided to W3C for inclusion into the CSS 2.1 test suite.
Introducing Compatibility View

IE 8’s Compatibility View allows content designed for older web browsers to still work well in Internet Explorer 8.
Site Compatibility and IE8

Taken from broken site reports, a discussion of some of the differences you’ll encounter when migrating from IE7 to IE8.
Compatibility View List

This article describes the Compatibility View List, also known as the Compatibility List. It explains how the Compatibility View List was created, how to determine if your site is in the list, and how to have your site removed from the list.
WebBrowser Control Rendering Modes in IE8

Many commonly used applications and Windows system components depend on the MSIE WebBrowser control to render web pages from within their program.  IE8 renders pages running within instances of the WebBrowser control in IE7 Standards Mode by default.
Microsoft's Interoperability Principles and IE8

IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can.  This is a discussion of what it means specifically.
The Internet Explorer 8 User-Agent String

A discussion of the updated User-Agent String in IE8.

AJAX

An Introduction to Cross-Document Messaging in Internet Explorer 8

This article provides an overview of HTML-5.0–compliant cross-document messaging in Internet Explorer 8.
Updates for AJAX in IE8 Beta 2

Information on the latest round of enhancements for using AJAX in the browser.
Native JSON in IE8

Internet Explorer 8, as of Beta 2, offers native JSON parsing and serialization. This new native JSON functionality enables Internet Explorer 8 aware AJAX applications to run both faster and safer.
Enabling Mashups in Internet Explorer 8 with Cross Document Messaging

Introduction to Cross-Document Messaging, a new IE8 feature that enables safer mashups.

CSS

CSS Compatibility and Internet Explorer

This article describes the support for the various Cascading Style Sheet features and compares support across the Internet Explorer releases.
The CSS Corner: Alternate Style Sheets

Discusses the new support of alternative style sheets in IE8 and the implications.
Ending Expressions

CSS expressions are no longer supported in IE8 standards mode. This post describes the feature and provides a few more details about that decision.
Microsoft CSS Vendor Extensions

The Microsoft IE8 CSS vendor extensions and the names of the properties are discussed.
The Default Layout Mode

A brief description of IE8’s default Layout mode

Misc.

New Accessibility Features in IE8

Describes the IP new UI features that improve upon the browser’s accessibility.
More on Internet Explorer 8 and IP Licensing

Describes the IP licensing for IE8 and highlights innovations made available to the community.
Activities and WebSlices in Internet Explorer 8

With Activities you can access services from any webpage.  WebSlices bring your favorite pieces of the web with you. WebSlices are portions of a webpage that you can subscribe to and view updates directly from the Favorites bar.  This posting provides a short summary and examples of these new IE8 features.