[carnageX]

Originally Posted by surgeVel

So this is an honest question. Do people still use IE? I mean, besides those who just buy pre-builts and use whatever is on it already? It seems every article I see lately is on removing IE from Windows 7 and the browser market share is dropping for IE.

I just recently switched to trying FF for a while...otherwise up until a week ago I used IE . Never had any problems.

[mikesgroovin]

I've heard a little from both sides of the fence... some are having similar issues that are illustrated here with IE8 and some are not. I did experience similar issues and still have it installed on a couple of home computers, but I just don't use IE8... no special reason to.

As for "coding" and testing websites. FF has a rendering switch that moves back and forth from FF to IE (using a legacy IE engine... not sure if they have updated it yet). But, seriously, why on earth would you try and "update your site" to a browser's viewing when the browser is not mature yet? It's just a waste of time. In my opinion, if you want to test IE, I would just use 7 and then your other browsers (FF, Op, Saf, Chr) Heck, I probably wouldn't even use Chrome to test considering it's near future. Anyway, to me, it just doesn't make any sense to update your website based on a browser that JUST got released and has hardly had any time at all to mature. It's not a mandatory browser and not a mandatory update, so why assume that people are going to instantly start using it to beat the band?!? Makes no sense.

For testing purposes, FF in my opinion has a lot of tools that are fantastic and are 2 specific reasons why IE will never be able to be as flexible as FF or other browsers when it comes to testing sites. Molsen turned me onto these while we were doing a couple of sites together and ever since I use them constantly.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

[aaronkupen]

You're right, due to the not mandatory nature of the browser itself, you can definitely see this result in a very low market share and a very low transition towards the browser.

[mikesgroovin]

Yea... sure IE will always have a very proving market share and just for this reason, should be heavily considered by internet developers. But, right now, I feel it's a time and money waster to throw resources at testing in IE8. I would at least wait until the first service pack or until the release of Windows 7, whichever comes first. IE8 will have a lot of updates by then regardless.

Right now, I'm using IE6 for work due to 3rd party venders. Many people rely HEAVILY on 3rd party software and thin internet based applications (the age of the thin client is now ). People aren't going to even consider building patches and releases to their thin client"ed" software until the internet browser is, at least, released in a HEAVY enough volume... which is... ultimately when windows 7 is released. Then, at least, you know for sure that plenty of people will be using it do to the sale volume of the operating system.

[c0rr0sive]

I liked IE7, but it crashed often, it would just randomly lock up... IE8 just seems to slow, firefox, ehh it's ok for the most part.

[mikesgroovin]

So, what do you use?!?

After my post, I just started to laugh hysterically at the lame power that is our 3rd party vender that still refuses to patch their medical software to IE7... bunch of circus clowns.... LOL
Then, I looked up some sites and found this... this just made me laugh (due to the music).. LOL. Here is a good selling point for IE6!!!

World's Worst Website

EDIT: AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My eyes!!! ACCEPT JESUS, FOREVER FORGIVEN! Check out the "ActiveX" similar or IE "notifier" bar and read the text..... LOL!!!

[Mak213]

Originally Posted by surgeVel

So this is an honest question. Do people still use IE? I mean, besides those who just buy pre-builts and use whatever is on it already? It seems every article I see lately is on removing IE from Windows 7 and the browser market share is dropping for IE.

Yes people still use IE. Some are pre-builts some are just people who dont like Firefox, Opera, Chrome or anything else out there. They know how to use IE and dont want to learn a new Browser. I know several in this catagory.

They know how IE works. I have personally installed Opera, Firefox and Chrome. They didnt like any of them removed them and stuck with IE.

Win7 will still have IE. Much to the EU's disapproval. The "removal" of IE in Win7 is only to delete the Icons from the desktop and Start Menu. You can still have access to IE by going to the Programs Menu\Internet Explorer Folder and clicking the iexplore.exe item.

IE is to tied into Vista/Win7 to jsut fully remove it. Even removing it from XP can cause some major issues.

[SparkMonkeyHellion]

In the corporate world, most people still use IE.

1) It's free and comes with windows

2) it's technically supported by M$, however all of the IE specific problems I have ever run into at work were outside of M$ scope of help. Many little problems with DLL's and registry things... many web-based applications break often (every time IE updates... the release of IE7 was a disaster for several of my clients)

3) people know how to use IE - it is rather straight forward

4) Almost everything can work with/use IE, even if IE isn't the best possible choice

5) many people simply do not know of other web browsers. as far as they are concerned IE is simply "the internet". You say "firefox" and they say "Fire what?"

6) Group Policy can manage IE - but it can only install, uninstall or block other browsers

7) Since IE is standard, there are many corporate apps which do not work well on FF (some not at all) - but this can be corrected by the new add-ons which make FF look like IE

Commercially speaking, there are advantages to using IE, such as group policy. Most users simply do not need the additional functions that FF supports. All they need is "Favorites" and that's it.

[beedubaya]

IE 8 is an improvement over IE 7 but still hasn't caught up with Firefox. Corporates will always use IE because its easier to support.