An eWeek review of Internet Exploder 8RC1 reveals a “dog bites man” sort of story:
eWEEK Labs’ tests of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 show that the browser has made great strides over IE 7 in terms of usability, security and stability. But the browser landscape has changed significantly in a very short time–including Google’s entry into the fray–and IE 8 is already a step behind competition including Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.
Well, *duh*. As I said recently, IE8 seems to suck less than IE 5, 6, and 7, but that’s damning with faint praise.
I’m now using Opera 10 alpha, and the browser–in alpha!–seems as solid as a rock for my use. Heck, even the experimental version 10 (alpha) Opera Turbo (time limited preview) has very, very few rough edges. Some of the features in Firefox, Safari and Chrome are interesting, though most of the “can’t live without ’em” features are built into Opera and have been since about version 7.
Microsoft always seems to be building a browser for last year’s (or last decade’s or last century’s *heh*) browsing instead of looking forward or even playing catch up with the leaders. M$ still just doesn’t seem to really “get” the web.
Still, if pushed and shoved into using Internet Exploder, version 8 is shaping up to be less irritating than earlier versions in some ways. I’ve used it off and on on the Windows 7 side of a dual boot, and it’s OK. Almost as good as Seamonkey. 😉