Hey, it doesn’t sound much but, as my gran would say, it’s better than a smack in the mouth.

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They even provide unbeatable technical advice by email and in the form of web pages, eBooks and a discussion forum.

Simply follow this link, fill in your details and your discount code will be emailed to you.

The latest version of IE8 is “release candidate 1″. But what exactly is a “release candidate”? I’ve been working as a professional IT developer for nearly 20 years and have only recently become aware of it.

A quick Google shows Microsoft using it for Windows XP Service Pack 2, but I’m struggling to find anything before then.

Wikipedia defines a Release Candidate as “a version with potential to be a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs emerge.” This all seems a bit woolly to me, as it sounds like a final release. There are clear definitions of Alpha and Beta releases, but this doesn’t seem to fit properly. A Beta is clearly a release that you allow customers to try to get rid of any problems before a final release. So where does a Release Candidate fit into this?

Microsoft itself defines it as “at a stage in the development process where it is ready to be evaluated by users while it undergoes final testing.” Evaluted by users? Final testing? Surely that makes it a Beta.

Personally I never really became aware of RC’s (as I’ll now call it, to save all that typing) until Microsoft started using them. I’m not saying they invented the term but I certainly think they’ve made it fashionable. But, dare I suggest, they’re using it to package Betas as something different. Imagine if IE8 was released as a third or fourth Beta. It wouldn’t sound too good that it’s taken 3 or 4 releases to get rid of the bugs in their software. But name it as an RC and you can maybe get away with it.

For Vista, Microsoft even referred to early Beta releases as “Community Technology Previews” (CTPs). A ponsy name for masking what was, however you name it, a Beta release. Others called then “pre-Betas” (if they were, they were Alpha releases, which should have been internal testing). That meant that they only had to release 2 Betas, even though a number of CTPs had been released prior to this. Sounding familiar? Not surprisingly, the two Vista Betas were followed up by two Release Candidates.

Microsoft is fooling no-one. Personally, I’d like then to call them Betas, which is what they are. Somehow, though, I can’t imagine it happening.

The Release Candidate of IE 8 has been released and, naturally, I have it downloaded and installed. Not had the chance to play with it much though, although I’m curious to see if it still breaks the menu on the BMTG website¹. If it does, I’ll be reporting it to Microsoft (which I should have done earlier, if only there’d been a clear way of doing this – I’ve only come across the link more recently).

What I do know is that, as an “average” Joe, I’m not impressed. Microsoft have said…

We have made IE 8 the best browser for the way people really do use the web

Really? It looks pretty much like IE7. There’s a lot of tinkering “under the hood” but as an average customer, what does that mean to me? WebSlices and Accelerators? I think not and I’ll bet money now that most people won’t use these facilities. In fact, I’ll quietly bet now that Microsoft end up retiring these features in later versions.

It is apparently quicker. But, looking at the last beta release, it would appear that it’s still not caught Firefox or Chrome. Quicker but not quickest.

It is apparently more secure – it has a privacy feature that already exists in Chrome and is likely to be in the next version of Firefox.

I’ve only downloaded IE8 for the purpose of website testing. Can anybody give me a single good reason why I should move back to IE from Firefox? Can anybody give me a good reason why IE users won’t continue to move to alternative browsers? I suspect not. As Microsoft so often does, it throws features at a product that people don’t really want. If IE8 was secure, extremely fast and had the kind of plugins that Firefox uses then THAT would be a good product.

It’s a shame, because they seem to have done such a good job with Windows 7.

Update: The BMTG site DOES work with the new version of IE8. Hurrah. That’s another bug fixed. However, I still took the opportunity to install their plugin for reporting broken web pages. Ironically it’s not working right now – their server is too busy. So much for this being past beta stage.

Update #2: Test of new IE here. Conclusions – slow, renders badly and still has problems. Don’t agree with a lot of their “positives” though.

1. don’t try it… I have the Meta tag in place at the moment that runs it in IE7 compatibility mode [↩]