# IE 8 anyone?



## bim27142 (Mar 20, 2009)

The final version has been released. Tried it but I didn't like it. Any thoughts on this? I find it ugly looking...    

BTW, I still use FF 3 as my primary browser.

... and it's not just the looks by the way, some of the websites that used to work like charm on IE 7 stopped working on IE 8. Oh well, maybe it's just me though...


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## Fizban (Mar 20, 2009)

As far as sites working on IE 7 but not IE 8. that is because IE 8 is more standards compliant than IE 7. It's actually a good thing, it means web developers can stop making their pages specifically for IE 7 and instead just stick to the standards of web development and have their pages work correctly on all browsers. IE 8 hands down is a better browser than IE 7 was. That said I won't touch either one. I'm one of those weird guys that cares about speed and based on my most recent tests browser speed hierarchy is as follows:

Chrome Beta 2 > Safari 4 > Opera 9.64 > Firefox 3.1b3 > IE 8

Suffice it to say I'm posting this from Chrome at the moment (actually technically I'm using the nightly build of Chromium, but same difference...).


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## Binge (Mar 20, 2009)

It's terrible.  IE8 was a let-down.


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## jagass (Mar 20, 2009)

I didn't liked it too...


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## erocker (Mar 20, 2009)

No problems here with it.  As far as looks go, it looks the same as IE 7 to me.


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## Binge (Mar 20, 2009)

erocker said:


> No problems here with it.  As far as looks go, it looks the same as IE 7 to me.



Point and case... works just as well as IE7


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## Polarman (Mar 20, 2009)

Works all right for me here.


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## Fizban (Mar 20, 2009)

Binge said:


> Point and case... works just as well as IE7



No, it's FAR more standards compliant than IE 7 and is therefore a much better browser. It's just well, still far too slow. Especially on Sunspider. I will make a graph of the test results I got earlier today on sunspider with a dozen or so different browsers to show just how slow it is exactly.


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## Fizban (Mar 20, 2009)

Graph is below:


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## newtekie1 (Mar 20, 2009)

I've been using it in the beta forms for a while.  Not the best browser, but usable at least.

Personally, I use Avant as my primary browser, which still uses the IE8 rendering engine, but a different UI that I've customized to my liking.


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## Fizban (Mar 20, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> I've been using it in the beta forms for a while.  Not the best browser, but usable at least.
> 
> Personally, I use Avant as my primary browser, which still uses the IE8 rendering engine, but a different UI that I've customized to my liking.



Odd, the rendering engine in IE 8 is what I hate most and is what makes IE 8 so god awful slow. If you don't like IE's UI why would you use another browser that uses the engine of IE?


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## Binge (Mar 20, 2009)

Polarman said:


> Works all right for me here.



Good, and the way it works is SLOW.


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## erocker (Mar 20, 2009)

Binge said:


> Good, and the way it works is SLOW.



Your pretty much correct with the being the same as IE7.  One good thing is that I haven't had it crash yet. (fingers crossed)  I have yet to have any kind of performance issues either.  Video, flash stuff, browsing, whatever.  It all works good.


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## Fizban (Mar 20, 2009)

erocker said:


> Your pretty much correct with the being the same as IE7.  One good thing is that I haven't had it crash yet. (fingers crossed)  I have yet to have any kind of performance issues either.  Video, flash stuff, browsing, whatever.  It all works good.



Everything in it works for me okay, it's just 'meh'. The only neat features it has are:

Each tab is its own process. (Chrome does this too.)
It colorcodes the tabs. (I like this actually, but it's not enough to make me use it over Chrome as Chrome is the absolute fastest browser hands down for just about every task.)

Technically I don't use Chrome, but it's what I'd suggest to people as the best browser. I personally use Chromium most of the time (ie. nightly builds of Chrome, alpha software). I've never had stability issues with Chromium, but still wouldn't suggest it to others simply because it's more likely to have them than the official releases are.


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## erocker (Mar 20, 2009)

I turn tabs off.   Thanks for the info on Chromium, I'll check it out.


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## Fizban (Mar 20, 2009)

Just figured it should be mentioned. The IE 8 in that graph above is the Windows 7 Beta IE8, not the official release that is available for XP or Vista.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 20, 2009)

Fizban said:


> Odd, the rendering engine in IE 8 is what I hate most and is what makes IE 8 so god awful slow. If you don't like IE's UI why would you use another browser that uses the engine of IE?



Short Answer: Because I like Avant. What does it matter to you what browser I like and use?

Long Answer: I started using Avant when IE6 was still the latest.  Firefox was still in beta, and Opera was still pay or adware.  I wanted a browser that offered tabs.  I used most of what were availalble and found I liked Avant the most.  Over the years, I have customized Avant to the way I like, and have never found a reason to use anything else.  IE8/Avant is not noticeably slower than Firefox, Opera, or Chome to me and I use all 4 on a daily basis.  I just use Avant to do most of my personal browsing, while the others are used mainly for test purposes.


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## Deusxmachina (Mar 20, 2009)

Fizban said:


> Graph is below:
> 
> (Sunspider)



Is that the test a lot of people complain about because it was written by Apple guys?  And that it also doesn't really reflect overall browsing speed?

Regardless, the only browser I can think of off-hand that feels truly slow to me is IE7. (Haven't tried 8.)  I had IE I think 6 on my PC for the longest time and rarely used it.  It was ok, just didn't have tabs or other good stuff, but I had to upgrade to 7 for some reason, and 7 is just horrible in so many areas.


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## Fizban (Mar 20, 2009)

Deusxmachina said:


> Is that the test a lot of people complain about because it was written by Apple guys?  And that it also doesn't really reflect overall browsing speed?
> 
> Regardless, the only browser I can think of off-hand that feels truly slow to me is IE7. (Haven't tried 8.)  I had IE I think 6 on my PC for the longest time and rarely used it.  It was ok, just didn't have tabs or other good stuff, but I had to upgrade to 7 for some reason, and 7 is just horrible in so many areas.



It was made by the webkit developers. Webkit is used by both Chrome and Safari but isn't actually affiliated with Apple, it's an Open Source project. s for being accurate fro browsing it does only test javascript capabilities, but it's commonly estimated nowadays that 60-70% of websites use JavaScript.


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## rickr_ie8team (Mar 23, 2009)

Hey Bim27142, IE8 has a new “Compatibility View” mode that allows you to view a webpage as if you running an older version of the browser. I invite you to take a quick look over at the IE8 page here: http://bit.ly/IECompatibility  and read about the “Compatibility View” feature and see how it can help improve your browsing experience. Let me know if you have any specific questions about Compatibility.
Rick 
Internet Explorer Outreach Team


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## btarunr (Mar 23, 2009)

I like the IE8 accelerators, but that's about it. Waiting for someone to come up with a Firefox addon that mimics the accelerators.

edit. Oh, there is one shaping up  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10722

edit2. and it's much better!


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## Bokteelo (Mar 23, 2009)

I can't stay away from Chrome, sorry!


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## Evo85 (Mar 23, 2009)

btarunr said:


> I like the IE8 accelerators, but that's about it. Waiting for someone to come up with a Firefox addon that mimics the accelerators.
> 
> edit. Oh, there is one shaping up  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10722
> 
> edit2. and it's much better!




Thanks BT! I had not seen that one!


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## FordGT90Concept (Mar 23, 2009)

I like the View Source syntax highlighting.  A huge improvement over damned Notepad.

However, JS/Java/Flash/Silverlight can still lock the browser up and there is a nag message on the address bar if you don't have Windows Search installed.


I had it crash several times in a row but there was a lot of Windows Updates that weren't installed yet.  The crashes went away with further updating.


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## v8ornot2v8 (Mar 25, 2009)

FF3 is the best way to go.  There were a couple of adaptations coming over from IE, but oncet I got uset to it, I love it!


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## Fizban (Mar 25, 2009)

Deusxmachina said:


> Is that the test a lot of people complain about because it was written by Apple guys?  And that it also doesn't really reflect overall browsing speed?



I tested every browser on my PC with Peacekeeper, FutureMark's Browser benchmark, (considering the number of people here that use FutureMark's other products, specifically PCMark, and 3DMark it's probably seen as being far more reliable) and they ranked in the following order:

Safari 4
Chromium (Nightly Chrome)
Chrome
Alpha Opera 10.0
Minefield
Firefox 3.1b3
Safari 3.2.2
Opera 9.64
IE 8

Disclaimer: Those Firefox benches were with no Add-Ons.


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## Deusxmachina (Mar 25, 2009)

Can you run Firefox through again with add-ons?  How many do most people use, anyway?  15?


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## TribeBuckeyeFan (Mar 25, 2009)

Same.  I do like that they brought back the "similar sites" thing.  Looks the same as IE7, and I haven't had any sites not work for me (yet).



erocker said:


> No problems here with it.  As far as looks go, it looks the same as IE 7 to me.


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