Internet Explorer 8 Turns 3 Years Old, Still Going Strong
Microsoft's Internet Explorer just turned three years old.
Released on March 19, 2009, it has turned into the browser that is largely ignored by its developer. According to StatCounter, IE8 holds almost 17 percent of market share, only second to Chrome 17 with 27.12 percent. IE8 still has the lead over IE9 (14 percent), which was released a little over a year ago and is only available for Windows Vista SP2, and Windows 7.
IE8 is likely to turn into another IE6 problem even as Microsoft is updating IE8 with a silent update feature around the world. IE8 has no hardware acceleration or HTML5 capabilities and therefore not important to Microsoft from platform point of view. In its browser reports, Microsoft only refers to IE9 as its browser and will only talk about the success it has under Windows 7.
What has made IE8 a fascinating browser from a statistics point of view is the fact that Microsoft has cut off its users from an upgrade path. Those who still use Windows XP will need to upgrade to Chrome or Firefox (or Opera or Safari) to enjoy HTML5 features. It almost seems as if IE8 has been accepted by Microsoft as a painful, but decisive cut that transitions its users to an HTML5-only user base for Windows 7 and Windows 8 applications.
According to its own website, IE6 is still at about 7.1 percent market share globally. IE was released in 2001 and replaced with IE7 in 2006. IE8 has been replaced in March of 2011 by IE9. How long will IE8 be with us until its market share becomes insignificant?

Wait... it was strong?
Wait... it was strong?
browsers have extensions to have IE tabs and opera has a way to view pages as IE so no ones has any use for IE now other than windows XP users because it the only way to use windows update
is nothing but a bad hack of firefox
if microsoft included html 5 support for its IE 8 i think alot of people would of stuck with it over IE 9.
same goes for when direct x 10 was released and they forced people to upgrade from xp because they wanted to get people to buy their newer so called improved operating system aka vista.
typical microsoft i say
-My dad's belief for all software, except for XP and Vista.
But as it stands right now, I can't/won't use anything but IE, because with it I can stop lusers from installing toolbars and other crap, and make sure that the traffic goes through the content filter (and that they can't change that address), and that the homepage stays locked to Google and doesn't change to that default MSN garbage.
I want to be able to switch the browsers because Firefox/Chrome is so much better, but right now that's just too much work, so we stay on IE 8.
For me it's both good and bad that IE has fallen, but personally the UI changes are not that great. Sure it looks clean but at least the competing browsers offer near full customability to make up for it. Kind of like you get a empty canvas to mash into whatever your heart desires. Can't do that with IE8 or IE9.
1. auto updates
2. IE 6 had bad standards support, so large corps/gov with custom apps didn't upgrade on purpose because of their custom apps, forcing other dev's to also support IE6
3. even though it scores low on the acid tests, unless you really go to town with html5 and css3 IE8 handles mostly the same as newer browsers.
Congratulations to Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and other browsers to support XP. I am sure there are many people out there still on XP and this provide the opportunity for those browsers to prove themselves, gain market share and user loyalty.
^ +1
Here's an official Microsoft 10,000 word troubleshooting guide to something that "just works" in any normal browser.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2009/09/11/troubleshooting-stored-login-problems-in-ie.aspx
Here's an official Microsoft 10,000 word troubleshooting guide to something that "just works" in any normal browser.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2009/09/11/troubleshooting-stored-login-problems-in-ie.aspx
that or just get roboform or lastpass
IE strong.... whooo, pff this made my day...
Microsoft stop being an ass and face the reality as it is. You SUCK.