Reader Herman Barnes wrote to comment and ask about problems with the beta version of Internet Explorer 8:

Thanks for a great site. Ihave IE8 beta on winXP. My favorites star button won’t open. Star depresses like it’s going to to something but nothing happens. Recent activity were uninstall Norton Security and install AVG. Any ideas? Thanks..

I wrote back to Herman to tell him that I’m not using the IE8 beta and can’t provide any help on it. I seldomly use beta software, whether Microsoft’s o r from other companies.

Remember that beta software is software that is released in the hopes that users will find and report bugs. It is not perfect, is not a "release candidate" nor final version, and often has known bugs that simply haven’t been fixed yet.

Whether from Microsoft or other companies, you should not have any expectation that beta software’s known bugs have been fixed — whether they are functional or security bugs. There’s a reason that beta software licenses are even more emphatic in their disclaimer of any warranty and disclaimer of any damages that they may cause to your data or your system.

If it doesn’t work correctly, report it. If it bothers you, uninstall the beta software and go back to the current version.

Now, of course, IE 8 has been released as a regular download — it’s no longer a beta. The next rumors are that Microsoft will issue Internet Explorer 8 as a Critical Update for Windows XP and as an Important Update for Windows Vista.