We've been asked for quite awhile to provide a performance comparison of the different mainstream browsers out there, and so today we are going to show you the stats from several different areas that users generally find to be the most important. Things like memory usage, page load time, and JavaScript performance will all be covered below.

We realized that we've never really done an article diving deep into the history of browser stats even though we have shown you screenshots of browsers from long ago. Thanks to Net Applications we have about a year and a half worth of data to look at, and it is interesting to see the rise and fall of the different browsers.

I've never been a big fan of the search box located in almost all of the browsers these days, and I'm not quite sure why.

It didn't take long for two different developers to start replicating some of the best new features in Internet Explorer 8: WebSlices and Activities. Come on, you knew extension developers would jump on the chance to give users very few reasons to switch to Internet Explorer.

We've been receiving quite a few requests from our readers wanting to know what we think about Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, and whether it is worth the upgrade. I downloaded and installed it shortly after it was released yesterday, and the total installation time on my Vista machine took around 4 or 5 minutes. There were absolutely no problems upgrading to IE 8 from IE 7.

So far all that we've known about Internet Explorer 8 was that they finally decided to push for web standards, and for that I'm extremely grateful. Microsoft has, however, posted an IE 8 Readiness Toolkit likely in preparation for MIX08 which starts today and runs until March 7th. In the toolkit they have download links (which we've posted at the end of this article) as well as a feature guide.

The other day, the Web Standards Project released the Acid3 test that will push browsers to a new level. I'm sure many of you are already familiar with the Acid2 test which has become famous because of the often discombobulated block-like smiley face most browsers produce.

February was a good month for almost all of the browsers out there except for Internet Explorer, according to Net Applications. From December 2006 to August 2007 Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser was able to maintain a substantial 79% marketshare. In the last 6 or 7 months, however, they've been dropping just under 1% each month.

Microsoft made a decision over a month ago that Internet Explorer 8 will not use their "super standards" mode by default. They said that websites would be able to opt-in to having IE 8 render sites in a standards-compliant way, but they thought it would be best if they broke as few sites as possible.

Microsoft has started to send out emails to select individuals indicating that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is right around the corner. The email is targeted to people whom they would like to receive feedback from before they open the doors to the general public, and no specific date for the IE8 Beta release has been given.