Filed under: Internet, Microsoft, Browsers
Three things I love about IE8 (as a technician)
Since I just (and I mean just) finished reformatting and installing the Windows 7 RTM on my desktop at work, I figured I'd leave things be and use Internet Explorer 8 for the rest of the day. Truth be told, it's a capable browser and works just fine for the majority of my web-based tasks.
Plus, I've gained a bit of respect in the past couple weeks from what I've been able to do on my workbench as a result of customers installing IE8. There are a few features that I really appreciate when I'm trying to fix someone's bogged down, beaten-up Windows install.
Improved speed
No, it's definitely not as fast as Chrome or Safari, but IE8 is definitely faster than previous versions. Since it's the browser I'm fighting with all day long as I undo customer "accidents," I'm glad performance has been improved.
InPrivate
Even though I'm just using IE to download certain tools or test functionality, I still don't want to leave tracks on my customer's computers. InPrivate makes it easy for me to be discreet.
Managing Add-ons
Easily one of the most helpful features. When I disable something like MyWebSearch, IE8 takes a look around for additional components that appear to be related and offers to disable them for me. It helps to quickly clean up lots of common browser annoyances I encounter.
Internet Explorer 8 might not be perfect, but I'm much, much happier to find it installed on someone's PC than, say version 6.
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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
tyrax said 11:32AM on 7-29-2009
I'm pretty happy will IE8 as well. I still have Firefox installed, but when I started playing with the Win7 RC I just kept using IE8 as my default browser. When I found a way to turn the inprivate feature as an ad blocker, I lost my main reason for using Firefox.
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216 said 11:42AM on 7-29-2009
IE8 is definitely a much better default than IE6, but I still wouldn't replace Chrome/FF with it. Altho when people refuse to use FF I always make sure IE8 is installed on their PC anyway (so they use it without even knowing it)
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Kamal said 11:53AM on 7-29-2009
Not to mention the built in developer tools and javascript debugger. Press F12 to get started. It is great!
The accelerators have a lot of potential althought mostly just use the "Search with..." feature.
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ZeRo said 12:05AM on 8-19-2009
Thats exactlly what i was gonna say!
Matt said 12:11PM on 7-29-2009
Hurm. I, too, am happy that IE is no longer a joke, but I can't muster much enthusiasm for it finally being, apparently, 'almost as good' as any of the programs it's competing against.
It's great in the sense that people who don't know any better* finally won't make life miserable for their tech support and the web design community, but it's not exactly putting stars in my eyes. So, a 'thanks' to Microsoft for making the default option tolerable, but they haven't earned a 'bravo' yet.
* And, of course, the people who choose to use it. It's also great that choosing to use IE can finally be a legitimate option, instead of simply bonkers.
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Robert said 12:27PM on 7-30-2009
I wouldn't say it's not a joke anymore, it's just a little less funny now.
turu said 1:43PM on 7-29-2009
Multiple tab processes !
Never see it works on Gecko based browser, and therefore I was surprised to see how it works by using IE8. it's actually cool B)
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turu said 1:46PM on 7-29-2009
"Not to mention the built in developer tools and javascript debugger. Press F12 to get started. "
omg, i didn't know that IE8 have these functions as default. yes, it's great !
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Kamal said 3:20AM on 8-08-2009
Here is a great video about using the developer toolbar. It is short on details but highlights the features so one can go play and discover all the possibilities.
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/toolshed/ToolShed-Tooltip-19-IE-8-Developer-Tools-saves-the-day-and-time/
Drew Green said 2:16PM on 7-29-2009
IE8 seems pretty good (we rolled it out at the office a few weeks ago), but the one thing that bugs me is the tabbed browsing. It always seems to have a slight delay when opening a link in a new tab. I wonder if that's because it needs to start a new process for the new tab. Any thoughts?
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turu said 4:26PM on 7-29-2009
Do you face same problem while using Chrome (the another browser which has same multi session ability ) ? then maybe it is...
but I feel like I had same problem even when I use IE7 (the one w/o multi session).
Drew Green said 4:29PM on 7-29-2009
No, Chrome does not have this issue. And I agree with you that IE7 seemed to have the problem, too. Not sure what's causing it.
n0r said 1:37PM on 7-30-2009
I have the same tab delay issue as well. That plus the "click" sound annoys me enough to dont use IE. But apart from those annoyances IE8 is actually decent.
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Will said 8:27PM on 7-29-2009
The real question is how did you get Windows 7 RTM? It doesn't seem to be on MSDN yet?
Did you download it illegally? Does DLS support stealing?
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bu0489 said 1:46AM on 7-30-2009
as if you have never downloaded something illegal, go get a life u troll
Niels van Dijk said 5:24AM on 7-30-2009
Try Before you Buy sounds better than Don't Copy that Floppy :)
Alex McKee said 11:14AM on 8-01-2009
It's not on MSDN, Technet, or any other service I'm aware of right now. I wonder if MS released it to journalists ahead of time? Wink wink?
M.Diver said 11:20AM on 8-03-2009
Dousche comment.
Dean said 12:10PM on 7-30-2009
About tab speed in IE, please see "How to make IE open new tabs faster" at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/07/18/how-to-make-ie-open-new-tabs-faster.aspx
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Brian said 6:10PM on 8-10-2009
I feel unworthy to work 10 feet away from you Lee. Good article.
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