Internet Explorer 8 has a new and useful tab grouping feature. Tab grouping is ‘on’ by default. To turn Tab Grouping off, or change its settings, Tools > Internet Options > General tab > Tabs > Settings. You can set your preferences here.

1. A tab that is opened from another tab will not be placed at the end of the tab row. The tab selection is not always placed to the right when a tab is closed, but it is placed on a tab related to the recently closed tab. This is tab selection now works when any tab is closed.

2. Tab are also now grouped next to each other, by colour, for easier identification. The difference between the colors below is great enough that many color blind users can differentiate between the different groups.

3. IE 8 now also includes names of the tab groups (i.e. Tab Group – 1, Tab Group  -2) on each of the tabs after the title.

4. If you accidentally close a tab within a group, you can restore it in the right group using the new “Reopen Closed Tab” option in the menu.

There are many such new options available in IE8 right click context menu.

5. You can even can drag and drop tabs in IE 8 as per your preference.

6. In case of a crash, the failure is confined to only the particular tab and the browser does not crash. The tab which crashes is also recovered. This is the “tab recovery experience”.

If you have liked this post, you might want to check out some more, on topics like Tabs.