IE8 Users Revert to IE7
When a new browser launches, it’s natural for there to be a huge surge in users. Basically everyone downloads it to try it out and then they go back to what they were using before. These are the people who never planned on switching from Firefox to Chrome or IE to Firefox and were just curious to see what it was like on the other side.
That said, it’s rare, at least for browsers, to see users reverting back to an older version just after the updated verison launches. According to InformationWeek, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 seems to be losing market share, even though the browser has been on the market for less than a week.
Backing up the report, IW posted some numbers from Net Applications: as of 8:00 am Monday, IE8 held 1.86 percent of the browser market, down from a high of 2.59 percent on Sunday.
While comfort is always a factor (just this morning we were talking about downgrading from Windows ME to Win98 back in the day) InformationWeek also points to the the fact that Explorer 8 uses default support for some new web publishing standards that aren't supported by a number of major publishers. As a result, someusers have complained that they cannot view certain sites.
Some IE8 adopters reported that even pages built with Microsoft's own Web publishing software, Microsoft Publisher, failed to render properly in the new browser. Yikes.
Check out the full report on InformationWeek here.
Did you any of you guys upgrade/switch to IE8 or did you stick with Internet Explorer 7 or your current browser? If you did stick with what you had before let us know why!
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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jsloan yeap i ran into this problem. google, this site, would not render properly, i had to force enable compatibility mode for all sites, else i ran into problems. things like text boxes were rendered in very small font, to the point that they were unreadable and unusable. i even switch to firefox because of problems. nows i'm back, but i still have some issues and one wonders is it the websites or ie8. firefox renders them ok, so did the old ie7, but not ie8, it could be that html standards have changed or that people did not follow them, but the solution is not to break every website, it's to default to what everyone did and not break everyones site...Reply -
DT12 I installed it at home and work. Nothing wrong and very fast. I also use Safari,Chrome and of course the Fox...Reply
For those with issues just use compatability mode... -
maaksel I use Chrome and love it. Sometimes chrome will have some issues, and after a reload or two I switch over to IE7 and it will work... then back to chrome as quickly as possible.Reply
Its clean UI and speed are the main reasons I was attracted to it. -
SneakySnake who would use IE8 on OSX??? Safari is heavily optimized in OS X and has compatability with other OS X apps. If you really can't stand Safari download OmniWeb (os x only browswer) or FirefoxReply -
mdillenbeck In trying out Windows 7, I found out that our web based time sheets don't work with IE8. That and no significant gains over FF3 has be back to using FF3 almost exclusively.Reply
Which makes me wonder how much the IE8 surge was due to the Windows 7 beta, and the large fallback are people putting on their favorite browser shortly thereafter. -
curnel_D It has a little broken page icon up in the top corner by the refresh button. At hand compatability views. Using this, I havent had a single problem, and even have toms working right finally.Reply -
michaelahess So far good luck with it. I've had some sites not look right, until I used the compatibility view, so far it's been great. Haven't used it on any of my 64-bit machines or vista yet though.Reply -
kelbo I think we are talking about those people who just installed it to "try out", and went back to their original preferred browser. I, for example, use firefox, and installed it to check it out, but I am still using firefox.Reply
I even liked it, internet explorer 8 proved me very fast and good, for the few days I used it.
downgrading?? well, as long as they have a compatibility option, no need to.