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Microsoft has released the second beta version of its upcoming Internet Explorer 8, it has emerged.

New upgrades that have been bundled into the beta version include a more adept address bar function that can predict the requested url through previous search history, as well as an improvement to the abilities of tabbed browsing.

The browser will also include inPrivate mode, which allows the user to keep details of internet sessions private.

Although the beta is available now, although no formal release date has been set for the final product.

A news provider for technology, vnunet.com, also stated that Microsoft was attempting to become more standards-compliant in its newest release.

"Microsoft says it passes the Acid2 browser test, will include CSS 2.1 and supports W3C’s HTML 5 Draft DOM Storage standard and the Web API Working Group’s Selectors API," it continued.

Online resource eWeek noted that Microsoft was following the lead of Apple's Safari browser in providing its inPrivate privacy features.


More than half of small businesses (53%) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support, London based Connect conducted the research in 2007.