Tales From The IE8 (crypt)

Well I've never had much luck with IE8 since I was forced to move up from IE7 because I'd moved up to Win7. Whenever I've repaired/re-installed the system I've tried to use IE8 but after the first two or three pages when Bing gives me the option to pick a search engine from the (blue) search engine choice screen, I get the little busy cursor going round, and round, and round, and round. Until TIME OUT!!
So I then give up and live with just FF, which is good, I add, but sometimes you just need IE.
Now, I've just set up a VM and I thought I'd give IE a go when the system had installed. Well the first surprise I got was that Bing didn't offer me the (blue) search engine choice screen, I got the old style where you can enter a TEST address. So I got the goggle search engine and off IE8 went like a good 'un.
Aha! I thought, I'll copy the address, drop it into the "real" IE8 and get my goggle search engine. And lo and behold off IE8 went like a gud 'un again.

THREE freeze ups & BSOD's later, in not as many hours, IE8 was once again consigned to it's rightful place, hidden at the back of the cupboard. Never to see daylight again. (No Add-ons were installed. Frankly, I didn't have time to install any!!). Just wish I could still use IE7

Firefox does everything the IE8 does, it just doesn't use ActiveX applets.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy with Firefox although I'd always rejected the furry ones come hither glances and promises of riches beyond my wildest dreams!! I'd always been an IE user, IE8 put paid to that!! Luckily on XP you could block the update & stick with (the far better, I think) IE7.

I'm a bit miffed at the mo with FF tho' as I (usually) can't get Google images to show, just the blank square with a little icon in top l/hand corner and I use the image pages a lot.

Yes, luckily you could block the IE8 update in XP, and Vista also. However, it's OK to run IE8 with Vista. You know Elmer, IE8 really wasn't developed for XP to begin with. Vista needed a new browser, and more importantly, Windows 7 was in it's infancy. There was no way that Windows 7 was going to ship with IE7 as it's main browser.

However, IE7 ran great on my XP Pro SP3 notebook. Then IE8 came along, and through a "pop-up" from Microsoft (around March, 2009), I was offered the chance to "improve" IE, and was urged to accept. I did, and for the next three months, my computing life was bad. Whereas before IE7 ran great, IE8 had all kinds of problems. Web pages loading badly (the triangle in the left corner with the exclaimation point) was a constant part of my daily experience. Slow as dirt, too. Clearly, this browser wasn't made for XP.

So in June 2009, the RC for FF 3.5 was released with good reviews, and out of desperation, I went for it. FF has been my main browser since. After I placed FF on my notebook, my pride and joy returned to me. Web searches were faster, no page errors, and an overall better experience converted me to FF for good. I was an avid IE7 fan, and would have gone nowhere, I was satisfied. But MS pushed a new browser on a OS that wasn't ready for it. That's why when I do an XP install now, I hide the IE8 update, and go with IE7. MS is going to nothing more for XP users, but supply updates & patches.

And truthfully, that's the way it should be. Although I have three XP installs, MS shouldn't continue to pour money into a sinking ship. The money would be better spent for the future, which happens to be growing at a faster pace than many of us ever expected. Virtual and "cloud computing" are fast growing, and should be supported. And let's not forget 64 bit computing, the fastest growing segment on the market (for PC's and notebooks). Since the release of Windows 7, I've yet to see a 32 bit PC or notebook on the market. Netbooks are different, 32 bit is what they run. 64 bit must be supported at full throttle, by hardware and software companies alike. And it's happening, which is good. XP & Vista isn't in MS's future plans, period. There's some who won't like it, but those who probably won't like it doesn't like change. Many probably are still clinging to their VCR's. We can't move forward that way.

So in a way, it was good to see IE8 emerge, not because it wasn't good for XP, but because it's good for the future. And I hope to see that trend continue, as technology doesn't stand still, and neither can we, if we expect to keep up.

Cat