Internet Explorer 8: Stick With The Alternatives
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is available for download. This is a test version so there are some bugs and it shouldn’t be downloaded if you value stability or compatibility.
Having said that – I wouldn’t recommend it even if it was stable. I really hate Internet Explorer. I will grant that each successive version of Internet Explorer is better than the last. Microsoft is also listening to the web design community a little better this time and following some actual standards. I still hate it with with unequaled derision.
For a long time, you couldn’t browse the web conveniently without having Internet Explorer. IE was the most common browser so web designers coded for the browser. The problem was that if you wanted to use a browser that worked better for you or had more advanced features and it wasn’t IE you would have problems because the web pages required functions only Internet Explorer would do. This was because IE wasn’t standards compliant at all so one code for a page wouldn’t work for multiple browsers. This was a pain in the butt for both web designers and web surfers.
Luckily, that has all changed. The popularity of the Firefox browser and the encroaching popularity of Macs and the Safari browser have made it so web designers are coding for more than just IE now. I can go weeks or even months without ever opening Internet Explorer or running into a page that doesn’t work right in Firefox or Safari. The pages that don’t work with Firefox or Safari are usually ones I can do without. All of my financial sites, shopping, social networks, banking, movie trailers, etc all work without Internet Explorer.
I did run into one snag though … Netflix Watch Now still is only usable on Windows with Internet Explorer. That’ll change soon and is because of the video copyright restrictions rather than a browser limitation.
Going over the virtues of other browsers would be a long post for each of the alternatives so I’ll leave it up to you to decide if there is a browser more to your liking. Look through Wikipedia for a good overview of each product and I suggest you give a couple of them a try and see if something other than IE may be right for you. Keep in mind that the other browsers offer a lot more customizing options than IE ever has so be sure to check those aspects out as well (such as skins and plug-ins). If you want some hints on where to get some of those plug-ins just let me know and I’ll point you in the right direction.
Recommended:
Firefox – Windows and Linux*
Safari – OS X
Good Alternatives:
Opera – Windows
Camino – OS X
Other Options:
Shiira – OS X
Konqueror – Linux
Webkit – Linux\OS X\Windows
*Firefox does run on OS X and is a good browser, but the current version handles memory allocation badly and doesn’t incorporate well with the rest of the OS like Safari and Camino do.
UPDATE: It was pointed out that I really didn’t mention any of the new features. That’s true. They aren’t enough to make me recommend IE8 over Firefox or Safari, but if you’d like a good run down, check out Ars Technica’s IE8 first look.
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I would definitely use firefox for everything, even mac. I only use safari now because of safari stand. otherwise, i just hate how safari handles tabs and such. but this isn’t about safari lol
I might have to try out IE 8. But since there’s no IE for mac, and i rarely ever use my windows box, I might not even care about IE8. We shall see!
Firefox 3 Beta is working fairly well on OS X and runs much smoother than Firefox 2 ever did for me so it has replaced Camino on my machine as the alternate browser. Safari is still really fast though so it’s hard to give up. I tend to switch between them as I feel. They all work pretty well (firefox 3, safari, camino). When Firefox 3 is officially released it’ll be a battle royale between Safari and Firefox though … and the extensions are hard to live without.