Want an early glimpse of Internet Explorer 8? Then have a look at these screenshots. They're a good sneak peak at some of the new features in Microsoft's latest Web browser.The images, assembled by the folks over at research firm NeoSmart, provide a look at improvements in a number of key areas, including Explorer's Favorites Bar, Page Options menu, and Address Bar.

There also are images showing Explorer 8's install screen, JavaScript Debugger, CSS View, and other screens that should be of interest to developers.

Click here to see for yourself.

"While there are a couple of changes that stand out, most of the visual improvements are subtle and take some keen observation to notice," NeoSmart notes.

Microsoft formally introduced Explorer 8 earlier this month at its Mix '08 event in Las Vegas.

The good news is that the browser features better support for Web standards. The bad news is that it, uh, features better support for Web standards.

That's not a contradiction.

Researchers at Gartner are applauding IE 8's standards embrace, but they caution that it might cause older, Web-facing apps -- especially those used in business -- to break. IE 8's default standards mode "will result in pages that don't display correctly for some enterprise applications," Gartner warned.

"Strive to design for standards, not browsers," Gartner advised.

Among other things, IE 8 features support for Web programming standards such as CCS 2.1 and HTML 5. It also promises improved support for the Ajax programming language.

A beta version of Internet Explorer 8 is now available for download directly from Microsoft.