OK. So there has already been a lot of buzz about the amazing features that IE 8 now has to offer for the ultimate browsing experience.
There are some articles out there which go ga-ga over the awesome feature set and then there are others who say that Microsoft is just catching up with the other players already in the market. Well, for this post, I leave the decision to you. I recently installed the IE8 and am enjoying the amazing feature set it has to offer. As I go on with exploring the features, do expect further post to contain a lot more details.

Some of the cool feature-lets (that's a term I came up with – it just says – a small feature) that I found right on the first look –

• Starting with what I do the most – searching. Yes that's enhanced. The top right hand instant search box is a lot friendlier and provides real time suggestions and images. I choose to search from Wikipedia and it also gives me the related images in the search – that's so awesome. Well, for those who have earned the MS critiques reputation – you can always go ahead and choose the search provider you want.
• OK. So what's next? Looking for an address? No more copy pasting of the address into the live maps (or the G* maps) anymore. Simply highlight the address and click on the blue button that appears above & hover on "Map with Live Search". That's it. You get your address located in the live maps. Well, I hear you all – it allows choosing the mapping service that you like.
• There is a whole bunch of things related to "in-private" browsing. It allows you to browse in a private session. Any pages that you browse in here do not end up having the cookies lingering on your machine after the browser session. That's browsing with no trail left behind. I leave it upto your imagination on how you would want to use this feature. ;)
• Another cool feature-let, it groups the pages together. For instance, let's say you are researching about "Oslo" (not Norway's Capital, but the amazing new Microsoft technology) & "How Diet Pepsi is made?" in the same browser window. Now whenever you open the pages in the new window from any of these tabs, the browser detects the thread and relates all the tabs together with a single color. So now you can quickly make out if a given tab is for Oslo or for Diet Pepsi.
• Apart from this, there are a bunch of security related features that would ensure that you are always protected from the malicious software lurking on. And still more features that allow the developers to provide exciting features that you will discover along the way. I will cover those in separate posts.

Seems Interesting? Well, why don't you try it out for yourself? Microsoft has just released the RC1 bits for IE8. You can download it here.

Let me know what you think about this.

Happy Browsing,
-- Sanket