Microsoft Close to Releasing IE 8

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7852340.stm

Microsoft today announced that it had released Internet Explorer 8 "Release Candidate One", or RC1, which indicates that the browser is very close to General Availability (GA).

This surprises me, as I just uninstalled the IE8 Beta last Friday after being thoroughly disgusted with instability, rendering problems and other bugs with the version prior to RC1. Perhaps they've been burning the midnight QA oil, but somehow I'm skeptical.

In the meantime, Firefox has been enjoying steady market share growth, crossing the 20% barrier (to 21%). While I like Firefox for a number of reasons, and it remains my #1 choice in browsers, I have to admit that I've been using Google Chrome more and more due to its raw speed. Chrome doesn't seem to work very well on some sites, however, so I generally use it only for browsing news sites and, of course, with Gmail.

This should be an interesting year for browsers, and will tell if Redmond will be able to recapture any lost market share with IE8. Based on my experience so far, I'd have to vote no.