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Miscellaneous Debris => Tech Corner => Topic started by: sam2004gp on May 27, 2009, 02:45:06 PM
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Has anyone noticed that IE8 is now a forced update from Microsoft?
I just got used to IE7 and Firefox 3.
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Has anyone noticed that IE8 is now a forced update from Microsoft?
I just got used to IE7 and Firefox 3.
If you use custom instead of express download/install, you can deselect the IE8.
(It would take days to d/l IE8 on this dialup modem!)
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Basically it installed itself before I noticed. So far visually it looks the same. Just a few anti-bad stuff enhancements. My website still displays okay using it.
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There is no reason to use IE anything when there are so many alternatives. It's relatively easy to avoid downloading it from M$ if you take the simple precaution noted above.
NEVER let M$ download and install anything automatically.
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I generally use firefox, but need IE for occasional mission spedfic things that firefox can't handle.
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IE 8 is causing all sorts of troubles with non-compliant systems.
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The 'non-compliant' systems is an interesting turn of events.
For many years, web designers have had to put stuff in HTML/CSS to adapt to Microsoft's strange 'extensions' or quirks as compared to other browsers (Netscape, Opera, Firefox, etc), so much JavaScript and conditional CSS/HTML code has been written to
1) See if a IE browser is being used and
2) if so, do something different that that required by the other browsers.
Now, with IE8 it has two modes:
1) the IE8 'standards' mode and
2) the IE7 'compatibility' mode.
The 'standards' mode just makes IE (finally) behave like the other browsers (while indicating it's an IE browser), while the 'compatibility' mode just makes it render as IE always has (which makes the unchanged JavaScripts work without mods).
Unfortunately, IE is still required to run Microsoft/Windows Update functions (since they still use ActiveX as part of the process -- a M$ feature mostly unsupported by other browsers).
In short, their convergence to what is 'standard' with other browsers causes webmasters to add new detection to their HTML/CSS/JavaScript to undo the IE-specific accomodations/hacks formerly needed to have IE render pages the same as the other browsers.
I too am a FireFox aficionado -- I only use IE for testing and Microsoft Update (because it's still required).
Best regards,
Ken
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What bugs me is some websites I run into especially at work that still (in my opinion) are living in the old days requiring IE for proper site operation. I believe it maybe due to using Active X as Ken mentioned though I have not dug into the source code they are using to know for sure. These are not American companies to begin with. They are Japanese and Korean owned manufactures. Seems like manufactures of all places should make every effort to be compatible with customers and authorized service centers running popular alternative software.
Maybe that's a clue they are hiring retired MS engineers in their second career specializing in IT and web development? ;)
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Lots of government sites insist on IE.
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Yeah, IE8 updated onto my system.... and now I can't send mail from, get this, Microsoft's Outlook web interface! I had to download and install Google Chrome so I could use the Outlook webmail interface I have to use where I'm currently working.