America Online (AOL) has confirmed that a bug in its new Netscape 8 Web browser is breaking certain XML configurations in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

According to Microsoft, Netscape 8 corrupts IE's XML rendering capabilities, meaning that an IE user navigating to an XML file is greeted with a blank page.

Microsoft has suggested users uninstall Netscape as a possible workaround, but AOL says the bug affects only a small percentage of IE users who visit pages using XML technology and an automatic patch is due to be deployed soon.