Back in March, as I’m sure you know, we released the final version of Internet Explorer 8 for download.

There’s plenty to like about IE8 – not only is it faster than any previous version (and faster than any other browser on most of the top 25 websites), it’s also the most secure browser we’ve released to date (and according NSS labs, head and shoulders above any other browser in terms of detecting malware), and it has a whole host of great features built right in.

Three of the features I really like are accelerators, visual searches and web slices and we’ve been working with some big-brand companies in the UK to build an initial set for you to use. We’ll be adding to the UK list of course, keep an eye on http://ieaddons.com for more details.

However in the meantime I’d like to point you at addons from the likes of Tesco, Ebay’s UK site, Rightmove, ASOS.com and Directgov, the government portal.

1. Ebay.co.uk has some great add-ons for IE8:
   - An accelerator that let’s you look up items on ebay.co.uk wherever you are
   - A visual search that allows you to get rich search results from ebay.co.uk without leaving the page you’re on
   - Web slices for every product search you do on ebay.co.uk (should be live on the UK site from tomorrow 4th April). This is excellent for keeping an eye on your auctions, whether you’re buying or selling. Instead of having to constantly check how the item you’re bidding on (or selling) is doing you can simply use the web slice from any page you’re on.
   Get all of these from http://ie8.ebay.co.uk
   
2. Tesco has released an accelerator that searches for products that they sell in their stores. They plan to improve this further by allowing you to search you own local store and add products directly into your shopping basket, right from the accelerator. This is great for recipes - for example you’re looking at a recipe on a website and you can just right-click on the ingredients to have them added to your Tesco shopping basket. You can get the accelerator from the ie8 gallery or directly from Tesco.
   
3. ASOS.com is the UK’s largest independent online fashion and beauty retailer with over 5.2 million unique users per month. I found that lots of women knew the brand very well, they are very popular as a retailer of womens’ clothing (they do sell mens’ too). In case you wondered, ASOS stands for “as seen on screen”. ASOS have produced an accelerator and are a visual search provider, allowing you to search their online store easily. They also provide web slices on their search results. The accelerator and web slice are available on every page of their site, www.asos.com (see links at the bottom of each page), or from the gallery
   
4. We’re also very pleased to report that Directgov, the government’s online portal, have produced an accelerator that makes it easy to search their website. Right-click on a “driving licence” for example to get a whole host of information back about….driving licences in the UK. You can get the Directgov accelerator from the gallery
   
5. Finally there is rightmove, the UK’s biggest property website. They have two accelerators, one for properties for sale and the other for properties to rent. These are great for example for finding properties close to an address or postcode. And once you have a set of search results you can add a webslice to keep an eye on the properties you’re interested in. The accelerators are available from rightmove’s site or from the gallery.

We’re seeing an increasing number of UK-based addons appearing – if you know of others let me know. And of course if you have developed one feel free to upload it to the gallery www.ieaddons.com. If you classify it as UK I’ll be sure to highlight it.