Ebay supercharges IE8 - but forgets about UK

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 30 Mar 2009 at 11:13

Ebay has launched a bespoke version of Internet Explorer 8 - although it's not particularly good news for British bidders.

The modified version of the browser pre-installs three Ebay features into the browser.

Visual search shows pictures and listings of Ebay auction items as you hunt for them in the top right-hand search bar.

The Ebay Accelerator allows users to highlight text on web pages and quickly locate corresponding auctions.

Finally, the Ebay Webslice allows users to keep an eye on ongoing auctions, by adding an alert to the Favourites bar. The Webslice flashes when the bidding is raised, although its maximum refresh rate of every 15 minutes makes it fairly impotent for the last-minute auction rush.

The arrival of a fully-working Ebay Webslice addresses one of our criticisms of Internet Explorer 8, but there's bad news for British users. Ebay.co.uk hasn't added the code that makes the Webslice feature work, meaning its currently limited to US auctions. Ebay insists the feature will go live in the UK by next weekend.

It's not the first time Ebay has helped create a bespoke browser - the auction firm has a tailored version of Firefox as well.