Just a day after Google released a new beta version of its Chrome web browser, Microsoft is set to roll out its next-generation Web browser, Internet Explorer 8 to fire up the web browser market. The Redmond, Washington based software giant Microsoft is expected to release the latest edition of its market-dominating Web browser, IE8 at the MIX09 conference in Las Vegas for Web developers and designers, today (Thursday, March 19).

Microsoft has already launched the Silverlight 3 beta and a preview version of the Expression Blend 3 web design and prototyping tool at the MIX09 Conference, which is spanned from March 18 to March 20.

According to reports from the conference, Dean Hachamovitch, the head of the IE8 development team, will announce the availability of Internet Explorer 8, which will be available at Microsoft's website, at www. microsoft. com/ie8 starting. It will be available for download in
25 languages at noon EDT, 9 a. m. Pacific time, with Installers for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows Server in both 32-bit and 64 bit editions. It will be available free for the Microsoft customers using licensed Microsoft operating systems.

In an official statement, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said, "Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser - safety, speed and greater ease of use. With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match."

According to Microsoft, the Internet Explorer 8 will run with Windows Vista, Windows XP, the previous Windows versions, and its latest operating system Windows 7. The IE 8, which has been in public beta testing for about a year, will be released in complete final form to public, and it will replace Internet Explorer 7.

However, Microsoft is still tentative about, whether IE8 will be integral part of its Windows 7, as the company is facing an antitrust case against it in the European Commission, for illegally tying its Internet Explorer web browser with its Windows Operating Systems; the complaint was filed by Opera.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer is certainly "most valuable player" in the highly competitive web browser market. The IT consultants Janco Associates Inc.' recent survey shows that Internet explorer leads the web browser market with 72.2 percent market share, followed by Mozilla's Firefox with 17.2 percent market share, while Google's Chrome has 2.8 percent market share and Apple's Safari has just less than 1 percent market share.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 will come with a number of new features including InPrivate browsing mode, one of the most notable features. The InPrivate browsing mode, a. k. a. "porn mode," helps hiding the activities of users not only from other users on the same computer, but also from third-party Web sites, keeping checks on the users' Internet activities. The IE8 has several unique security features including protection against clickjacking and cross-site scripting. Some of the new features of IE8 include right-clicking on addresses or other Web features to go straight to a map or put into a blog or other website, which the software maker calls an "accelerator". The IE8 will allow users to put in keywords in the address bar to recall sites visited related to that word.