Late yesterday evening Microsoft  started sending out invitations to participate in the upcoming Internet Explorer 8 beta program as the company said it would do.

In December of 2007 Microsoft detailed that the forthcoming browser had passed the Acid2 browser compatibility test and said it would deliver a beta version of the new application in the first half of this year.  At the time the company didn’t talk much about it’s new features, nor did they give a timeframe for a final release date.

As of late yesterday, the company started sending out invitations to select members of the company’s beta site Microsoft Connect, this is all happening before Microsoft shows the product to attendees of MIX08. Microsoft has said in recent months that the company will make the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 available to the general public.

One change the company said it was making to Internet Explorer 8 is the introduction to an updated User-Agent string. Simply put, they are replacing "MSIE 7.0" with "MSIE 8.0", and on Windows Vista the browser would send:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)

Ultimately, Microsoft with nearing the launch of Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 has set forth the goal of gaining valuable feedback to improve Internet Explorer 8 during the development process.

Overall it should shape up to be an exciting week, and when all is said and done and IE8 beta 1 is released, we will have our review posted for your enjoyment!

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