Welcome!

[skywidedesign]

I really dislike this idea. I wish they would allow MS to just ship Windows 7 with internet explorer 8. As other people have said, the only real problem with Internet Explorer is IE6. After 6 everything starts to work fairly well.

[r_jake]

After 6 everything starts to work fairly well.

Really? Then check this out http://idreamincode.co.uk/ie8-bugs

Then there's the JS rendering speed, and the Acid 3 test results.

IE is a shoddy product in comparison to it's competitors, and the only reason that it enjoys the market share it does is because it comes preinstalled with every PC that is sold.

[Andy]

Really? Then check this out http://idreamincode.co.uk/ie8-bugs

Linking to a list of obscure bugs does not exactly oppose skywidedesign's statement.

IE7 and above does work fairly well.

[Tarvalon]

Well enough where I don't mind supporting it, definitely. I still believe the user should have the choice of which browser they want to use and that that choice should be an informed choice, not either picked for them or 'informed' by the MS giant and the bs marketing they're conjuring up at the moment. But as long as they aren't on IE6, I could really care less.

[r_jake]

Linking to a list of obscure bugs does not exactly oppose skywidedesign's statement.

Maybe not, but I've no doubt that when I'm in the middle of a project working to a tight deadline that one of those 'obscure' bugs is going to pop out of the woodwork and give me grief. IE6 may be more broken, but at least it's bugs are well documented and workarounds can be made. IE8 on the other hand is unknown territory, and I resent having to factor in more testing time (and lose revenue as a result) because Microsoft are unable to produce a decent product.

[Monime]

Hmmm! I don't know what to say. As far as I know, until now all browsers used IE kernel, that was a Microsoft issue, and were dependable on IE, I'm curious about the way that they will handle this now. It might just be a bad joke. (I can be 100% wrong, so don’t hit me ) On the other hand it was the same with windows media player in the EU. Anyway I think most people will still use IE (6-8) and developers and testers will have as much as possible all browsers

[Parallax]

(*snip*)
IE is a shoddy product in comparison to it's competitors, and the only reason that it enjoys the market share it does is because it comes preinstalled with every PC that is sold.

That's true, but it's not a compelling reason to justify a forced removal.

[Piry]

You know this whole "i hate microsoft products" thing is driving me crazy.

So ok, the Windows comes with Internet Explorer (7-8). Nobody is forcing anybody to use Internet Explorer, as nobody is forcing you to use Windows Media Player instead of Winamp. I'm a Firefox user (and Firefox really has been pissing me off lately with mysterious crashes) and a web developer myself, and yes, Internet Explorer 6 was trouble.

IE7 seems to be allright, in some cases even better then Firefox. Haven't yet tested IE8 but I'm sure it's better then people say it is (because these people don't use IE and hate Microsoft for some unknown reason ... I personally don't know any broken products coming out of Microsoft).
Opera is still the most standards correct browser out there, and I don't know a lot of developers using it.

And I dunno, I think this whole Microsoft thing is unfair, even if they own 90% of the operating system market (they own like 65% of the browser market), which means a third of Windows users use some other browser. People can install another browser, I don't see the problem.
And to add that "With Windows 7, Microsoft added the ability to safely remove Internet Explorer 8 from Windows.", I really would sue the European Union if I worked at Microsoft.

As long as people update their browser to the latest version, I don't have any problem with Internet Explorer users (as a developer). Actually only 2% of users still use IE6, so developers that are making websites to work with IE6 are idiots.

I think I'll start using IE8 as well, because Firefox keeps crashing when I go to paypal.com.

[Tarvalon]

@Piry - Mind posting the link to the claimed 2% of users on IE6? All major reports still have the browser clocking in closer to the 15-20% range. http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=124

Seeing as you are ignoring 15-20% of your potential clients' users, I'd venture to argue those not developing for IE6 when the stats dictate you should do so are, in your words, idiots - not the other way around as you so claim.

[TT_Mark]

Sad thing is, IE 8 upgrades are coming more from IE7 users than IE6, mainly because those using IE6 are on their work computers with outdated software and needign to get onto an intranet coded just for IE6. Nearly all my companies clients are Town and city councils in the UK and every single one uses IE6.

Personally I don't see the point of offering a choice, people are just going to click the icon that looks the most familiar and stick with IE. In any case IE 8 is actually not that bad when it comes to basic web page display. 99.9% of the time, if it looks correct in FF then it looks correct in IE8

[Tarvalon]

@Mark - Agreed that IE8 isn't too bad for basic web displays but I wholeheartedly disagree that 99.9% of the time if it looks fine in FF than it looks fine in IE8. I run into IE8 issues pretty much daily now and while it absolutely is not the beast that IE6 is, it's also not as smooth as firefox.

[TT_Mark]

@Mark - Agreed that IE8 isn't too bad for basic web displays but I wholeheartedly disagree that 99.9% of the time if it looks fine in FF than it looks fine in IE8. I run into IE8 issues pretty much daily now and while it absolutely is not the beast that IE6 is, it's also not as smooth as firefox.

Fair point, but whenever I have tested my sites developed using FF as a guide, I get almost identical layout in iE8 and it is fine most of the time. I guess it depends how complex your layout is though

[Tarvalon]

Lucky you!

[Andy]

whenever I have tested my sites developed using FF as a guide, I get almost identical layout in iE8

Ditto.

I also get the same result with IE6. I guess it depends on how long you've been working with cross-browser differences as after a while you kind of develop a knack for what works and what don't.