Microsoft’s Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch this week announced at the MIX conference in Las Vegas the availability of IE8 Beta 1. Microsoft are debuting a number of new features with IE 8, some of which appear to have been “borrowed” from both Firefox and Safari.

First, Microsoft is debuting a feature called “Activities.” This feature was included to allow users to streamline many of their internet-related tasks. For example, Microsoft has partnered with Facebook, eBay, StumbleUpon, Yahoo, Windows Live and MSN, and provides ‘activities’ associated with each

Another new feature is called “Web Slices.” These function in a similar way to links, as they are tabbed below the URL bar; users may select slices of websites they like, and Internet Explorer will automatically check that particular website for updates, which will be easily viewable from the “slice” tabbed on Internet Explorer, unfortunately at this time only a handful of sites offer slices,.

The Phishing Filter which was built into Internet Explorer 7 has been given a new feature, users can now turn on and off a “safety filter,” which will block websites that have been recognized to contain malicious software or phishing devices.

You can read more about the features of IE8 on the MSDN Developer Network.

Although intended primarily for developers, the beta is public and can be downloaded from here. A quick note of caution to all: Several people have experienced problems with running this beta under Windows Vista with Service Pack (SP) 1 installed

If you load Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 and then decide you don’t like it, you can click the Emulate IE7 button to return your browser to the look and feel of the current version.

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