A "release candidate" is a preliminary, beta release of a product that is all but final, provided no deal-breaking bugs emerge in the product.
Microsoft is promising that the new version of IE will reflect "how people really surf the web."
According to IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch, some of the new features include a list of recently closed tabs and new gizmos that Microsoft is calling "Accelerators." This new feature will let IE users activate an array of quick shortcuts found under the right-click menu.
The Accelerator idea is similar to a previous invention by Mozilla, purveyors of the Firefox browser. Last year, Mozilla rolled out a new plugin called Ubiquity, which let Firefox users access an ever-growing choice of handy shortcuts through a small, simple text field.
But for the adult industry, the most highly anticipated addition to Internet Explorer is the new porn mode. Of course, Microsoft isn't calling it "porn mode," but has given it the more subtle nickname InPrivate.
So far, InPrivate is getting good reviews. Tech analyst Jason Kincaid compared Microsoft's porn mode to the already existing porn mode for Apple's Safari web browser.
"I like the execution of InPrivate better," he wrote for TechCrunch.com. "It has strong visual indicators to let you know when you’re in the private mode, while Safari just has a check mark under a menu listing."
In addition, InPrivate lets users control how much data they want saved while they're in porn mode, so someone could conceivably keep track of their cookies but not their browsing history while surfing.
For more information on InPrivate, visit the official IE8 blog.