(I tried searching, but of course you can’t search on EI 8, and nothing relevant turned up when I searched for “Internet Explorer.”)
Does anyone have any humble opinions – good or bad – about IE 8?
Should I download it, as Windows Update is pestering me to do?
Any major upsides or downsides?
For the record, I’m running XP Pro, and I use Firefox as my regular browser, and generally only launch IE when I come across a site that requires it. I’m still running IE 6.0, since no one here gave me a good reason to install 7.0 when it was released a year or two ago.
IE8 is a HUGE improvement over IE7. I also think it’s much faster than Firefox 3. I have been using FF3 for a long time now and wasn’t ready to switch to IE8 before it was live because it still lacked some features and whatnot, but at some point I might decide to. The faster speed and lower memory use would be the primary reasons. IE8 also displays alt-text much better than FF3 and I like the variety of shortcuts available when you highlight and right click words, notably the option to search for a highlighted phrase on multiple engines and the inclusion of a Wikipedia choice. I like that IE8 has built-in tool like InPrivate browsing but am baffled as to why they refuse to include a spell checker. The IE7Pro plug-in fixes that but it should be standard.
I’ll be interested to see what other compare-and-contrast info is out there. I have both installed and configured with my favorites and whatnot but I still tend to open FF3 out of habit. Maybe it’s getting close to time to reconsider that as I’m having speed and freezing issues with FF3 more and more these days.
I’ve read a lot about, but haven’t personally used IE8. While it sounds like they’ve made some immense improvements, they’re still playing second fiddle to most other browsers out there, in terms of speed, features, and security.
I’m a Google Chrome guy–runs circles around Firefox in terms of speed, has a fantastic UI, and is apparently the most secure of all the browsers (according to a competition to see who could crack each browser the fastest–chrome was the only one that remained uncompromised).
It sounds like I have the same problem. I’ve noticed that if you close all tabs and restart IE8, the problem is gone (for a little while). Is it the same for you?
Yeah, it certainly comes and goes. It’s one of those problems that you can never reproduce on demand.
Apparently the problem has been around since IE7, but only affects a minority of users. So, I’ve found many forum posts on it, but not many replies to them, and no definitive answers.
Still… I have less compatibility problems with IE8 (and prefer the interface), and I hate, hate, HATE! Firefox’s database approach to bookmarks…
So if IE8 worked, I would still use it.
I use IE8 and Firefox 3. IE8 is much better than IE7 and in general, I like it a lot. It has one flaw that keeps me using Firefox. It does not remember user names/passwords like it should. (I’m in IT and I have all of the settings the way they should be.) This wasn’t an issue in IE6.
I tried out Chrome when they launched it and liked it except for the lack of ad blocking. I tried the proxy-based blocking, but it didn’t work as well as Adblock under FF.
Has better adblocking for Chrome come along yet?
I hate the fact that you can’t sort your main list of bookmarks without going into Organize Bookmarks, or any list while in the list, only from the folder above it. It’s very annoying.
I don’t know why there’s not an option to **always **sort by name.
Truth be known, I’m probably just used to IE. So it’s lots of little things, like:
[ul]Editing/deleting/renaming favorites in windows explorer was easier. Manage Bookmarks in Firefox is fiddly.[/ul]
[ul]Why are the folders/bookmarks mixed together in alphabetical order? Isn’t folders at the top a convention?[/ul]
[ul]Integration with Windows start menu/links toolbar - I use these often (well… used to). I’m sure when I tried Firefox years ago, there was an add-on that converted and copied Firefox bookmarks to Favorites each time I closed the program, but I can’t find it now.[/ul]
[ul]Can’t single-click or F2 to rename bookmarks in Firefox.[/ul]
[ul]Import/Export between Firefox and IE seems to cause bookmark/favorite names to get truncated or otherwise mangled.[/ul]
I’m probably just more sensitive to it than most, because I organize my life through Favorites.
I have this insane double entry system for every new project I begin. For instance, currently I have open:
D:\Business\Goods & Services\Car\New & Used Car Analysis - April 2009\Possible Vehicles\Toyota Yaris (New)
…which contains pictures, pdf, etc. and is complemented by:
C:\Users\Michael\Favorites\Business\Goods & Services\Car\New & Used Car Analysis - April 2009\Possible Vehicles\Toyota Yaris (New)
…which contains the online sources, reviews, etc…
I’ve maintained the same ever growing list of favorites since March 1993. My Favorites folder currently contains 4,862 files in 1084 folders. :eek:
I do recognize that I need help.
…and that I really should buy a Mazda 2.
There are some websites that try to prevent the user from copying the url line. I’m not sure how it’s done, but it affects both IE and Firefox. There are ways around it, of course, at least in FF.
