Internet Explorer 8

Hardware and technical stuff
1

Available here. I realize everyone here is probably using Chrome or Firefox, but I was still wondering if anyone had taken IE 8 out for a test drive or what people thought of the new features they’ve added. I like the emphasis on the actual domain name; does Firefox have an extension that will do that?

On the other hand, IE is like the exact opposite of the Mac; everyone and his brother try to hack it so it may just be inherently unsafe.

2

I’d go back to Lynx before I’d test drive IE8.

rustbucket.jpg720×519

3

I tried the beta on my XP pc and hated it. Nothing worked.

The version on the Windows 7 beta is however quite good and does a lot of the same things as Chrome, like the ability to close a crashed webpage in a tab, without restarting the entire browser and it’s good at autocompleting websites with emphasis on the root pagename and not whatever subforum thread on the site you visited last (old IE would suggest http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=50497 while new IE suggests http://www.quartertothree.com).
I like. But I still prefer Chrome and rank Firefox and possibly Opera above IE.

4

I mentioned it in another thread. My feelings are very lukewarm, if not somewhat hostile about it. I’m testing it at work on a Vista machine.

In summary:

  • They still haven’t changed the UI back to something I like. Buttons and functions are spread around all over the top and in no apparent order, just like IE 7. Bleh.
  • The stupid compatibility thing is really going to get annoying (looking at this from a web programming perspective.) We’re now back to IE forcing everyone to change their site properties or get the little compatibility-icon-of-shame. One step forward, 45 steps back.
  • The accelerators and slices stuff is okay. As I’ve used them more they seem like they have potential, but I worry about something that allows even more customization of my browser based on an individual site. I can foresee lots of exploiting with something like that.

For what it’s worth I use Firefox almost exclusively with the exception of some work related web apps and forms. IE 8 worked fine with those, there didn’t seem to be any problems with the apps running on the new browser.

5

What’s IE?

6

I’m still not inclined to use IE much, but this RC1 is vastly improved from the IE8 Beta. Don’t use the Beta as an indicator of the browser’s current status.