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Like many of the Geek persuasion, I have a built-in dislike for Microsoft's web browser offering, Internet Explorer.  Maybe this was born of being from the Netscape era, and all the baggage associated with the early browser wars.  Maybe it was born from the fact that IE has spent most of its life as a security hole, and displayed no ambition in improving the browser space in which it has ruled for so long. 

I have been mainly using Firefox over the last couple of years, like everyone else, with Chrome as a backup and Safari on the Mac.  This has been working well for me, although I have been looking at moving away from Firefox.  My main gripe with Firefox is that once I get all the extensions and settings right, I only get a months use before it slows down.  I'm not talking about the browsing, I'm talking about the computer.

Unfortunately I'm the kind of guy that wants his browser and would like to use it to.  And it is not like I'm running a lot of extensions, in fact at the moment I only have four, but after being open for a few hours/days it becomes unusable.

If you take Firefox out of the equation, then you aren't left with many options when it comes to web browsers with extensions. Then I thought of IE8, which has been sitting on this Win 7 install for months and has only been used to download Firefox.  That's right, the only other real browser at the moment with extensions and compatibility is IE8.

Follow my adventures as I swap over to IE8 for my main browser.  Will I get a better performance change with my day to day use?

The swap over

To start with, it was a bit wierd firing up IE8, but Microsoft have done a good job making the interface fit into the Win 7 landscape.  I found that I was comfortable with the look and feel right away, and you know that the look and feel of Firefox has been annoying me some time.

With the release of IE8, Microsoft finally gave in and added extensions to the browser, in a similar style to Firefox.  Extensions can be found under "Add-on's" which can be found under the tools menu.  

I'm not sure how many Add-on were available at launch but there is a good amount there now, and all my favorites were there.  It took no time to load up Stumble and Delicious toolbars, and install Xmarks (formally Foxmarks) to sync up all my bookmarks from Firefox and my other computers.  So once I logged on to all the services, I was off and browsing.

Working with IE8

What can I say?  Use one browser and you've used them all.  Even with the interface changes between IE6 to IE8, for day to day use IE8 does the same work as Firefox.  Of course this may have more to do with the fact that IE, even though having the market share, has been actively been in competition with Firefox.

One of the only gripes I do have with IE8 is that when you click on a link to open it into a new tab, in the background, you have to click onto the current tab before you can keep scrolling down the page you're on.  This may seem like a little thing, but with all the other browsers I have played with, once I click on the link to open it in a new tab in the background I can just keep scrolling down the current page.

Why is this useful? Well, say you are scanning down a page with links, or a forum index, and as you scroll down, you click on a few links/post to open in the background to look at later.  Instead of the process being "scroll, middle mouse button click, scroll, middle mouse button click, scroll", it is "scroll, middle mouse button click, Left click, scroll, middle mouse button click, left click, scroll".

Maybe I'm just fussy but none of the other web browser do this, and it makes me wonder if the IE7 team didn't really get the point of "tab browsing", or if they just wanted to be different.

In the End

On Windows 7, IE8 seems to be a little faster and less of a resource hog.  When I say faster I'm talking more about the program speed and it's integration with the operating system, rather than web browsing speed, although for day to day use I didn't see much difference to other browsers.

I guess Microsoft have done their job with IE8 in the sense that it is competitive with Firefox.  And for the most part IE8 offers a good integrated experience, just not as flexible and free wheeling as Firefox.

I do have to wonder, though, what Google's Chrome is going to be like with extensions and plug- in's.  It looks like there will be plenty of support for the browser as it become the cornerstone of their OS.  Not to mention that it is noticeably faster and lighter that most of the competition.  Definitely something to look forward to.

Jason Remnant

...if it ain't Broken, switch.