As Microsoft readies another beta release of Internet Explorer (IE) 8, the company has made a call for more beta testers via a company blog.

On the IEBlog this week, Microsoft Program Manager Allison Burnett said the company is expanding the IE 8 beta-testing program.

Currently, the only way to directly file a bug with the IE team is if someone is a part of the IE 8 technical beta program on Microsoft Connect. Now, if people want to contribute IE8 bug reports, they can e-mail Microsoft at IESO@microsoft.com, Burnett wrote. She also requested that people sending e-mails explain why they would be a "great beta tester."

Microsoft is expected to release another beta of IE8, the next version of its browser software, this month.

Microsoft released the first beta of IE8 in March at its MIX 08 conference. The company plans to add more support for industry standard protocols, such as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), in the browser and has responded to developer feedback that it needs to bring them in to test IE8 as much as possible so they can prepare Web sites for these changes.

Microsoft made IE 7, the current version of its browser, more standards compliant when it was released in October 2006. However, many Web sites that had been developed to work with older versions of IE that did not support open standards did not work on IE7 and had to be recoded. Microsoft hopes to avoid a similar problem with IE8.

Microsoft plans to release the final code for IE8 before the end of the year.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.