Windows Vista forum: IE8 Is it any good

Or ask a little more. IE8 changed how pages are rendered and more. The issues I saw were not just IE8 but websites that may need tweaks to work with IE8. Let's say that IE8 is not going to change. And web sites will play catchup.

I don't use IE much so I never saw the issue. I'll let MSFT update their browser but use other browsers because it's my choice.
Bob

gomezy3k,

Hey, this is Feran with the IE Outreach Team. Six months ago you likely were using either the beta or RC version. The final was released in the middle of March so you may want to try it out. From a security standpoint, IE8 is a much safer browser than previous versions. In fact a new NSS Labs study shows that Internet Explorer 8 is the best browser for protecting consumers against malware and phishing attacks. Read more here: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/08/13/real-world-protection-with-ie8-s-smartscreen-filter.aspx

You can learn more about IE8 here as well as download it if decide: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/download-ie.aspx?ocid=ie8_sm_a

Hope this helps!

Seems a touch fishy to me. A cursory glance over that study makes it look kind of suspect. I actually went through the full report, which has a number of oddities about it.

Why they chose to go with Firefox 3.0.11 when Firefox 3.5 was released about a month prior to the publication of that report is a little suspect to me. They also run their tests on the Windows 7 RC, which seems VERY strange. They chose to go with Opera 10 beta instead of the latest stable release.

But they also say that IE8 and Firefox are basically in a dead heat given the margin of error of around 3.8%, so claiming that IE8 is the "safest" browser out there seems premature at best.

They say their data was collected starting on July 7th, and Firefox 3.5 was released on June 13th, so almost a full month before they even started collecting data.

And I see a lot of mention about various methods of testing anti-phishing methods, but that doesn't really cover malware, which is pretty much exclusively an IE problem. There are a few proof of concept type malware attacks using Java and Flash that will target browsers other than IE, and a few other proof of concept Firefox extensions that are effectively malware (at least one of which is pushed out by MS in the .NET Framework)... Let's face it, 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999% of all malware out there comes in the form of an ActiveX control.

But more than that, you can't make the jump from anti-phishing to malware prevention. The two are completely different attack vectors.

All in all, there are some questionable methods employed with that study, and the conclusions you draw from it simply aren't supported by what's there. If you want to push Microsoft products, that is your choice, but if you want to maintain any level of credibility you're going to need to start actually reading the stuff you quote. You can't just assume no one is going to look at the actual report, and find out that your cliff's notes version glosses over some pretty important things.

This is the wrong place for that sort of question. It's generally considered rude to hijack someone else's thread with your own questions.

Start a new topic, or even try doing a Google search for the answer to the problem. Even better, is just dumping IE all together. You've already managed, by dumb luck, to put it into it's safest possible mode. Now's a GREAT time to dump it in favor of pretty much ANYTHING else: Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome, Seamonkey... Take your pick.

after i instal IE8 i had a lot of problems. How do I go back to IE7?

I have gone through all versions of Mozilla Firefox and have found all of them to be infinitely better than any version of Internet Explorer. I suggest you try Firefox instead of IE8

I take this from another angle.....not if it is good or not by the method of deployment. It seems, at least with Browser MS can not make a d<nloadable piece of SW that will overwrite or replace the previous existing SW. I ran into this problem with IE 7 and now IE 8.

When IE 7 first came out, back in Oct 2006...I downlaoded it but it would crash so I reverted (uninsatlled) to IE 6. By the end of 2007 MS cured that problem with IE 7.

In March 2009 with the final release of IE 8 I downloaded it within the first few weeks after release. IE 8 never installed correctly. It would never load or it would load but not operate....just freeze. After numerous installs and uninstalls...I am back to IE 7.

If you have Windows 7 RC......IE 8 works fine..it is faster than IE7. Occasionally you will get a page that does not render correctly, text renders on top of one and other.....etc. So wait until you have Windows 7...