IE8 Launches: Do Web Workers Even Care?
March 19th, 2009 (10:05am) Simon Mackie 21 CommentsTweet This
Microsoft launches IE8 to the public this morning; you can now download it from the Microsoft web site. But do most web workers even care? Despite using a Windows machine, I haven’t touched IE for weeks. I downloaded the release candidate to check it out but since then I haven’t opened it up once.
IE’s marketshare has declined markedly over the past few years as better alternatives have entered the market. IE8 just doesn’t have anything to offer me over my two staple browsers, Firefox and Chrome. My thinking seems to tally with web workers generally: according to Google Analytics, only 22 percent of you access this site using IE, while more than half use Firefox.
However, as Om noted last night, for those people who are unwilling to consider alternative browsers, IE8 is an improvement on previous versions — particularly with regard to security — and probably does enough to stop IE’s browser share declining much further, so IE isn’t going away any time soon.
Will you download IE8?
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Technically I’ve had IE8 since I installed Win7, but I use Firefox on the desktop and Chrome on the lappy.
Is there a reason why you use different browsers on the two machines, Jason? I would use Chrome fulltime but it doesn’t play nicely with the spellchecker in WordPress.
I can’t synchronize my feeds across multiple computers with IE8, so you know, I don’t use it…
IE8 has shown improvement over its predecessors(IE 7, IE6, etc.) but still is far behind the competition. From a development stand point I hope it doesn’t become popular.
Do Web Workers Even Care?
No.
At my main job I have to use IE for two web apps or they don’t work. The only other reason for me to use IE (any version) is to test what my web designs look like in IE. Otherwise I use FF and Chrome.
I like Chromes memory management, but not having Ad Blocker on it, makes loading pages soooooooo sloooooooooow.
I’ll install IE8 when I see enough people using it to worry about it from a designs point of view.
It doesn’t offer me anything personally, but it does represent a potential future of no longer needing to include conditional comments, specialized stylesheets, or CSS hacks in order to address non-compliance.
In that regard, it’s not the *launch* that I care about… but I will be watching adoption rates and hope that I’ll get to stop supporting 6 (and maybe even 7) sometime in the next year or two.
I use firefox always unless something won’t load without IE. FF is so much easier to use.
Unfortunately, I have to care because I still get traffic from IE users. But I’ve considered not making tweaks for IE compatibility and just posting a message saying, “If you’re viewing this site in Internet Explorer, you’re not my target audience”
Internet Explorer 8™ includes significant improvements for web developers so of course I’ll be installing it. Web workers who don’t care will be joining the unemployed.
Yeah, downloaded it. I am probably one of the only IE / Windows fans in the world; have always got what I needed from IE.
But, I do also use FF, Chrome and Safari on certain sites as I find they are faster, but not all the time.
@johncarson
Hey Todd, just noticed your comment.
I think I’m your target audience, and as I said, use IE. If I saw a message such as that, would think it too presumptuous, dismissive and pretty smug.
While it won’t displace my current brower (Firefox) it is definitely a huge step forward for Internet Explorer.
No I won’t download it. What for?
I’ll download it.
Often, I will want to check something on the web, and don’t want to wait the hour and a half for Firefox (with all my developer and social media addons) to load.
When that happens, I either use IE or Chrome, depending on what computer I’m on. I like IE8’s Web Slices and its Accelerators.
Different browsers for different purposes, for me.
Microsoft releases IE8. World says: “Meh”.
At my institution, nearly all the IE users are so for one of two reasons. It came with the machine so they just use it without thinking. Or they use it because some specific enterprise app requires it (or claims to require it).
Nearly everyone who makes a conscious choice chooses Firefox or Safari or Chrome.
This is not a formula for market success for Microsoft.
As for me, I join with the others here: I could scarcely care less. And I’m the webmaster of a university.
Will you download IE8?
Perhaps. After a few weeks.
FF is just fine for now.
Of course. For development and testing I must, even though my main browser is Firefox and dabble occasionally in Chrome my browser stable includes pretty much anything I can get my hands on, including stuff like Lynks, even if just to make sure my sites don’t break on them.
Some of my older machines are still in use running older versions of IE (5 and 6 mostly) and Netscape 4 (and Tie Fighter, but the real reason are the browsers ;) )
Yes, for testing purposes. But only after someone posts the solution to installing IE8 while keeping older versions.