Internet Explorer 8 Hack Countdown! (too late)

Just yesterday Microsoft announced the latest, safest and coolest new version of Explorer. According to Steve Ballmer Explorer “gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match.”

Is that so?

My original plan was start a countdown here until the first reports of Explorer 8 vulnerabilities. Life is stranger than fiction, again, as Explorer 8 has been shown to be vulnerable to hacking attacks within less than 24 hours after its release. ZDnet reports how a hacker named Nils ‘performed a clean drive-by download attack against the world’s most widely used browser to take full control of a Sony Vaio machine running Windows 7’ at the CanSecWest Pwn2Own content. the same hacker also managed to hack into Safari and Firefox.
The exploit that ‘Nils’ used is not published and Microsoft’s Security team was there to witness the whole thing. Expect an update soon.

Truth is that no browser is really 100% secure and lots of people will greatly enjoy this new version of Explorer 8. So go and get it now and let us know how it works for you.

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Here are some of the new (untested) features Microsoft talks about that might be interesting for you:

Accelerators
Accelerators make it faster and easier to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Users can simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, or share it.

Web Slices
Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available wherever someone goes on the Web.

Visual search suggestions
The Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 enables rich, real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people’s own Favorites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information that saves time.

More details about Explorer 8 at Gizmodo.