Comments on: Mossberg: Internet Explorer 8 Would Be Best Browser if Faster

By: Beth Farrelly

Beth Farrelly — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:26:28 +0000

I found a cool contest Microsoft is running for Internet Explorer 8 – much better than their other videos promoting the browser. Users get to submit their own and the winner gets $2,500! http://www.brickfish.com/MSFTInternetExplorer8

By: James Bo

James Bo — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:18:52 +0000

Kevin,

See: http://bit.ly/vJKbW

For readers who use Firefox and IE8, I wanted your readers to be aware that Firefox has a version of Accelerators too, it is called “KALLOUT – Accelerators for Firefox” It’s available as a free add-on through Firefox. See: http://bit.ly/vJKbW

Selection-based search is really helpful. One GREAT feature of KallOut is BestGuess. The challenge with selection-based search is that the user has to figure out which one to apply to his selection. It’s a little clunky once you get more than two or three. KallOut does a super job figuring out which accelerator you need to use for a given selection-based search request. Kallout — Accelerators for Firefox is actually kind of spooky when it works so well.

Check it out! I agree that it’s a big step forward for the user to have the selection-based search bundled into the browser by default, however.

“KALLOUT – Accelerators for Firefox” is available through Mozilla at http://bit.ly/vJKbW

-JB

By: axonia

axonia — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:24:47 +0000

Using IE8 for some days now and i must admnit that its 2x better then IE7.I find it even faster then FF3 (wich i never have liked).
Love it and i’m going to stay with IE8 for a while.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:26:05 +0000

No worries Jake. I wasn’t sure how you meant it, so I might have read into your comment too much. It actually raises a good point worth reiterating: reading reviews and opinions of others is a great start to understand if something new will or won’t work for you. In the end, we should all make our choices based on personal experience. :)

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:47:18 +0000

Sorry Kevin. That came out wrong and wasn’t meant as an attack on you. No offence intended. I also missed the bit where you said that you intended to test it yourself so I apologise again.

By: Brazilianbloke

Brazilianbloke — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:34:46 +0000

I have been using this IE8 for a couple of hours and I have to say that MS has done a fine job. However, I can’t realy say it’s better than Firefox 3. Open new tabs is a bit sluggish. It’s not as somooth as Firefox and it still a memory hog when compared to firefox. It’s pretty clear to me that MS has a long way ahead before it releases a really competitive browser. Firefox and its add-ons along with its faster engine makes it the best browser available.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:06:33 +0000

Jake, I don’t make decisions solely on what someone else writes. I actually don’t recommend anyone do that and I’m disappointed to have you imply I’m relying on Mossberg for my decision.

I’ve used beta versions of IE8 for months and I wrote this post prior the IE8 launch, so it wasn’t possible for me to use it. As I said in the post, I’ll likely speed test it. For my needs, it will have to *exceed* other browsers. Unlikely, but possible and if so, I’ll find out.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:52:36 +0000

Actually, I may have spoken too soon. Opening new tabs seems a bit sluggish but once they’re open site loads seem REALLY fast. For instance, loading a Digg comments page with 100s of comments (reasonably javascript intensive) is instantaneous – seems much faster than Firefox.

I think this warrants a closer look.

By: CSMR

CSMR — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:51:26 +0000

There’s a proper search function now, better than firefox 3.0′s which doesn’t update hits when you change page.

By: CSMR

CSMR — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:44:09 +0000

First impressions are good. Fast, less buggy than IE7, accelerators a good idea, coloured tab groups too.