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IE8 – The Review
Posted by: mrsinister on Apr 21, 2010
Being a web programmer, I have dealt with a good few browsers. When we build websites and web systems, compatibility over the browsers is very important. No browser has caused me a bigger headache than Internet Explorer (IE). Unfortunately at the time, it was the most widely used browser so making it work on IE was paramount to the success of the website/web system. So I did hate IE for a while and was glad when Firefox finally overhauled IE in usage statistics. The other issue with IE was that a lot of sites worked only on IE (which is bad coding, but that is another topic). The biggest issue with IE however has always been speed. Firefox, Opera and Chrome were always light years ahead in speed. I am not a Microsoft naysayer however and was always willing to give IE a chance, and it always disappointed.
I approached IE8 with an open mind yet with a degree of caution. I read up a bit on the new features and the features sounded quite innovative, if not a little borrowed. Borrowed is not necessarily a bad thing though, most, if not all, applications and software borrow something from somewhere. From the offset the browser showed promise, for the very reason that it opened up much faster than I expected.
Positives:
- Much faster, I find it faster than Firefox in fact
- No complicated new look, same simple IE look
- Color coding tabs, and opening related tabs next to each other.
- Compatibility view
- Ability to create new session of the browser
- New find on page
- Web slices seems like a cool feature
- Privacy-wise IE has always been at the forefront
- Through fronting Bing as its search engine, might create a worthy competitor to Google.
Negatives:
- The add-ons, accelerometers, web slices etc. will not have as much support on the development side, unless Microsoft guys themselves develop them. Firefox and Chrome add-ons have a greater support
- Still a bit of a resource hog.
- Updates and add-ons could be less in your face.
I cannot think of many more negatives or positives, due to the relatively short time I have used IE, but all in all I think IE has finally stood up to be counted. I think they have finally realized that people won’t just use something because it is forced down their throat and that competition is actually a good thing in that it helps build a better product for your consumer. Better product = happier consumer = more business. |
