Comments on: My painfully poky week with IE 8

There are plenty of good things about the new version of Microsoft's browser. But I found its interface sluggish.

[mrblonde424]

IE8 is starting to pick up market share and is now 1.57% as of March according to <a href="http://www.statowl.com/web_browser_usage_by_version_trend.php?limit%5B%5D=ie&limit%5B%5D=firefox&limit%5B%5D=safari&limit%5B%5D=chrome&limit%5B%5D=opera&limit%5B%5D=netscape">StatOwl.com</a>

[pleatus]

1. open IE 8
2. keystroke ALT+D
3. ?????????
4. profit!

seriously though alt+d is one of the most basic key combinations in windows. maybe F6 does the job but i bet a lot of people were assuming facepalm after reading this terribly biased article. understand the technology you are using before you give it a thumbs down. how did you survive in the days before firefox? did you use netscape, probably not. terrible article.

[goutham91]

That was a Good warning and a Good Excuse for Not Downloading IE 8. Thanks !

I'll surely won't upgrade to IE8

[hellomad]

true, if i want to read mails? i will use a mail client, will ignore the web based clients. if i want to play multimedia files i will use a multimedia player and not the flash plugin or avoid it as much as i can. will try to avoid as much DNS leaks via dll as much as possible. simplest method? call up some friend of mine and ask him/her to check my cnet spambox. that way i am safe and secure. and clearly? even if people try and avoid flame cyber space world wars? these articles acts like a magnet, and they are meant to make people aware of technology and make people end up cry like nagging women. i will stick to what i like most and what i am comfortable with. i am not a software vendor and i will use what i like. damn it. and lastly? you cant change destiny, then why try? this aint controvertial. internet and posts here causes not just rise in temperature of body and mind and also global temperature, how? it leads to global warming.
more threads in the dll process means more CPU usage, which leads to more ram usage, more ram usage means more power watt, more watts means more power production, more power means more pollution, thus global warming.
why cant we stick to/with something simple and always have to be a moron with a cap doing a fancy nancy smart pant dude pole dancer? uhh? is simplicity so complex? like divide 10/2=5 than divide 10/000003459= 0_o mmmmm
so in the name of development we have made a limbo in the development and lead to everything unwanted, like waste of resources. now i wonder why things are so costly and worthless with shine packed whine.
my point here is? you cant have it because you dont want it. than again mileage varies. somepeople use a ferrari on a 5 mile long traffic jam and some use a simple car to travel cross country. whose whose choise is whose whose. you like firefox fine stick with it, you like opera fine stick with it, like IE stick with it, etc etc....... WHY NOT ACTIVATE THE MICROSOFT'S PROGRAM CALLED PARTICIPATE IN THE PRODUCT ENHANCEMENT OR ANY SOFTWARE BE A MATTER OF FACT, SUBMIT BUG REPORTS, AND HELP THE DEVELOPERS. WHY BLAME THE AUTHOR/EDITOR FOR THIS POST? (caps to grab the mindless's attention) his/her job is to make people aware, and i am sure he/she gets no S**T from any software vendor for procastinating. if people who post here? asking for bug fixes? KNOW ONE THING, THESE USERS CANT HELP, REPORT TO RESPECTIVE SOFTWARE VENDOR AND ASK FOR QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS, THAN WASTE TIME HERE COUNTING SHEEP. be it apple/windows/linux/bsd speak with the developers, they will WARMLY welcome your feedback/suggestions.
and highly wrong pointing fingers on authors/editors and proving them they are guilty? now here is one question, how many software HAVE YOU YOURSELF DESIGNED? you know how much hassle someone has to go? why even post here your likes and dislikes. which no ones gives a retarded damn! geez!
end? BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[John Fenger]

I had to remove IE8 from my machine because it crashed so much. I work on a web application all day.. it would crash 3-4 times a day. Not just crash, bug hang for then just sit there pissing me off. I had to revert to IE 7. Oh what a disaster... why can't Microsoft get it right?

[Lenter101]

Why even bother writing this article. The people who write on this site all qualify as members extraordinaire of the "Stuff White People Like". They are into Apple, are anti-big corporation - as long as it isn't Apple, have at least one black gay friend, love anything organic, voted for Obama, are experts on Sushi, love sea salt, drive a Prius or wish they did, have a peacoat in their closets and know what is best for poor people.

Christian Lander could spend one hour in the CNET office and have enough material for 2 more books. Did he ever work there?

[ajaikarran]

I stopped reading after the cut and past (url) comment. Stupid. Highlight the url, ctrl + C copies it. No need to use a mouse. *******.

[Neumenon]

Hi Stephen:

IE8 is lightning fast for me. Perhaps you're simply techtarded and have your biased preferences just like most people.

[listenup2]

My computer has been running slow and funky ever since I installed this. How can I uninstall it? I looked in add/remove programs but can't find it listed.

[Garken]

XP !!! How is that a fair trial for IE8 ? This is meant for Vista and Win 7. Ten or twelve apps open and many tabs ? Wow, I'm surprised that XP isn't blue screening. But it runs just fine on his home Vista machine where it was meant to be used in the first place. give me a break. I read theser columns to learn something, not have some hack try to shove drivel down my throat ! I have tried most of the browsers out there and IE is still the most stable and dependable one going. All web sites work with it and add ons do not give any problems at all.I use Google docs all the time and have never complained about them being slow, maybe he should take some lessons on system resources and how they fade as you open more and more apps and pile on the tabs.

[fedupwithpolit]

Not a bad review, if you had a better understanding of IE8 or looked through the "internet options" you would enjoy it more.

Double clicking an open area to the right of a tab opens a new tab faster than single clicking the small box to the immediate right. You can also use Ctrl-T.

Unlike you (and most people) my experience with firefox found it to be a resource hog and there was a minimal difference in speed. IE8 is faster than Opera on my Vista machine. I to need multiple programs open to do my job along with multiple windows. In my profession Firefox only works with about 1/4th of the sites I need. I've never figured out why anyone would want to need 2 browsers in order to use the web. But that's just the difference between people. Everybody's different, right?

Like you I have experienced some issues when many many tabs have been opened.. Unlike you I don't need to restart my machine, but I do end up closing IE8 and opening it when I'm finished reading everything or come to a stoping point.

Agree with; like accelerators, web slices haven't grabbed me. With security, I wish I could permanently or default in Private filtering to "on". That would be a really nice bonus.

Ok, here's where a little training would help you enjoy IE8 more.
The following describes shortcuts used on the Address bar: (found in "help' keyboard shortcuts in windows)

Select the text in the Address bar ALT+D
Display a list of addresses you've typed F4
When in the Address bar, move the cursor left to the next logical break in the address (period or slash) CTRL+LEFT ARROW
When in the Address bar, move the cursor right to the next logical break in the address (period or slash) CTRL+RIGHT ARROW
Add "www." to the beginning and ".com" to the end of the text typed in the Address bar CTRL+ENTER
Move forward through the list of AutoComplete matches UP ARROW
Move back through the list of AutoComplete matches DOWN ARROW

So Alt-D followed by Ctrl-C does what you were doing with mouse. Ctrl-E takes you to the search box and there are many many more keyboard shortcuts.

Gripe: fresh tab in current browser, new tab in IE8. Tools, Internet Options, General tab, Tabs, Settings (all on first screen), select "let internet explorer decide how pop-ups should open" under "when a pop-up is encountered", ok, apply, ok. Done, problem solved. Another solution mab be Ctrl click.

For me, I added "Send page by email" icon and "send link by email" icon to my command bar which has really streamlined the process for me. It's amazing how the little things spoil you.

I've tried Firefox, Opera, and Chrome. I'll stick with IE8. Others may have a feature I like a little better, but for me, IE8 does everything I need well and offers some stuff others don't. Plus it works with every site.

[Whiteknuckler]

Using IE 8 some of the pages I go to CRASH all the time.

I am going to try to go back to IE7

[blppt]

"Most days, I shut down my Windows XP work machine once a day without thinking much about it. But during IE 8 week, I found myself craving a fresh start by mid-afternoon. "

Erm....why should ANYBODY feel the need to reboot a 2k-based kernel OS daily? We arent stuck in 3.1/9x world anymore when resources would just disappear over time....hell, my work computer with 2k on it routinely goes months without a reboot (best was 320 days uptime), and my home Vista 64 system only gets rebooted when nvidia comes out with drivers worth updating or critical MS security patches (20-30 days).

Granted, my home PC has a decent amount of RAM (8GB), but my work computer has merely 768MB, and neither gets any slower as the months go by without a reboot. RAM usage with no extra programs open DOES go up within the first 10-20 days, but after that, it stays pretty consistent.

[JStringer]

I will only use IE8 for websites that do not render in either Firefox (my default browser) or Chrome. I constantly have crashes in IE*. The following sites do not work at all: www.aol.com, www.airtran.com or www.blackberry.com.

Jason

[manisnkr]

FYI
Alt+d can be used instead of Ctrl+L in any browser to select the URL and the opening link in another
tab is configurable.

[ccroucher]

I have to admid IE8 takes a few seconds longer than Chrome to load the first time. After a first load, as long as automatic cache is turned on IE8 is only about 1 socond slower, something I think most of us can live with.

You left out one very important feature in IE8 that I think needs much more exposure. If you are like me and move between numerous devices the Live Sync features is just fabulous. The organization of all my favorites from one machine to the next matches perfectly. When I add a link on one machine it immediately appears on all my other machines.

If you remove all the extras in IE8 that skuddle its performance, us it without all the extra toolbars, stick to its excellent tab organization and activate Live Sync you'll have a winner.

[bullywug]

I got IE8 with a large bit of trepidation after it came out. I'd used the beta briefly and it seemed slow and buggy. I had been using IE7 and Firefox but liking neither of them 100%. IE8 is better than either of the others. It's faster and more stable. It never stalls like IE7 and it's more pleasing to look at than Firefox.
I can respect differing opinions, but this was supposed to be a review however you start your article by saying that you already were prejudice. What's more your statement that Google's Chrome is better is just a joke and proves you did not give IE a fair chance. Google's Chrome I've used and I agreed with Google's decision to take it back to beta. It's very buggy and unstable.
Some CNET reviews are good but I find a disturbing number of the reviews use sensational headlines that capitalize on peoples emotions to bash companies and get you hits. There are reviews on here that are simply factually incorrect, such as one of the articles about switching to Mac. The editor complained about the experience, and while I am a PC user and I really don't like the experience of using Mac either, many of the reviewers claims were simply false. I sell Macs and I use Macs so I know.
CNET, please go through your staff and either reprimand or replace the reviewers who are not doing their job. Please ensure that they are actually reviewing the products rather than just ranting about their oppinions. A review site is only as good as people's oppinion of that site and if you keep making fake reviews, people will notice and stop coming to your site.

[jscott418]

Their is actually a hack to fix the slowness in XP for some who experience it. I tend to loke it myself and I think the author could have used the Accelerators for some of his cut and paste operations.
I think the speed is right their with the rest and I am not going to split hairs on the minor speed difference in any of them. IE is on the right track and if they can get a update out within a year they can keep up. It will be interesting to see what Firefox will do with 3.1. So far they seem to have run into a brick wall on something.

[THUNDERBEAR4U2]

After I installed IE8 it was painfully slow. I cursed myself for upgrading. I started to think maybe I should do some house cleaning. I deleted everything. Stored passwords, cookies, browsing history.... It was a pain to re-enter all my passwords and re-customize those pages that leave cookies to determine their layout and what not. Ever since IE8 is jammin, on my system anyway. A clean install (no history, cookies, passwords) seemed to make a big difference in performance and speed . That was my experience anyway.

[Eltzes]

Out of all of write-ups that I have read regarding Internet Explorer 8, not one of them mentioned about the lack of voice compatibility when using voice recognition programs. I have been a long-time user of Dragon NaturallySpeaking and there was never any problems with compatibility between Microsoft products such as Microsoft Office, Windows XP or Vista until Internet Explorer 8. I know that the problem does not entirely rest with Microsoft, but I do think that when new programs expressly browses are undergoing testing, compatibility with such software should be taken into consideration as a vast number of uses actually do use such software (not a minority group). If Nuance would list some information on their website regarding the incompatibility issues that have arisen since the browser upgrade and what they are doing to resolve the problem, users of their software until then are left in the dark.

Regards, Steven Eltze.

[william.e.ward]

I installed IE8 and used it for 5 days before unistalling (big mistake; I should have just rolled back, but uninstalling ate the rollback point that I needed to rollback to).

It's totally screwed up my RSS feeds in Windows Live; they now no longer update more than 30 minutes after the computer the computer has been booted (known issue with IE8 BETA... why the heck wasn't this fixed?); it's messed up my IE7, too, with the same "pages take forever to load, or NEVER load". It's simply hosed my Vista Home Premium system such that I don't know how I'll get it back without a reinstall (which I can't really do; I've got every bit of my PhD work on that machine). I'm scrupulous in making sure my AV is up to date, and patches are applied; this is ALL IE8.

DO NOT USE IE8 until the first SP (at least!) to fix these issues.