Microsoft has made available an Internet Explorer 8 readiness toolkit for developers and early adopters. The release was announced at the Web 2.0 conference, Mix08, in Las Vegas, along with demonstrations of some of its new features.

In a blog posting Chris Wilson, Internet Explorer Platform architect, said, "This release contains some great advances in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and layout, programming model, performance, reliability, usability and service integration. We are eager to ensure that the transition to Internet Explorer 8 is seamless for you and your audience, and to give you a head start on using many of the new features with your sites and services."

Included in the release notes are advice on how to make sure sites and applications work on the new browser, including how to manage ActiveX controls. Other features are Facebook and eBay integration, an improved phishing filter, and automatic crash recovery.

One feature that might appeal to firms with sales teams and remote workers is the ability to 'look up' information within a webpage, meaning that workers would be able to click on an address and view an in-page map.

Internet Explorer 8 can be installed on Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2).