Recently I upgraded to a new laptop running Windows 7 Enterprise and it came with IE8. The Ie8 browser was so incredibly slow it was unusable. However, I found a way to correct the problem. If you are having similar performance issues with IE8 you may find this information helpful for speeding up this bloated browser. Disabling Add-ons and installing the Google Chrome Frame plug-in may help you speed up IE8 to the level of "acceptable". Read more
Microsoft's proposing to use something called a "ballot screen" that would require users chose which browser they would like to use. It's something akin to the default search engine chooser you're presented with the first time IE8 starts up. Great, one more install question we'll get to answer. But is it really fair that IE 8 will come, installed and ready to go with the OS, when other browsers must be downloaded and installed separately. Read more
It was mid last week when I installed the Google plugin for IE8 that replaces the web rendering and JavaScript engine with Google Chrome's WebKit and V8 engine respectively. Since I blogged about this last week, Microsoft's fired back balking because the plugin negates the private browsing feature in IE8 and makes the browser less secure by "running a browser within a browser". Read more
The issue of Google's gutsy move to step in and solve IE8's performance problem is pretty short and sweet from my perspective. If IE8 wasn't such a slow pig of a brower, there wouldn't be an opportunity for Google to fix it by using Google's WebKit display engine. Plain and simple. IE8 was slow when it was in beta and its still SLOW today, one of the worst performing browsers on Windows... still. Read more
In a test of Internet Explorer 8's malware-blocking abilities, IE8 significantly bested the competitors. But then again, Microsoft paid for the test. Read more
Opera Software is, as expected, preening over the expected forthcoming ballot box feature in Windows 7. When European Windows 7 users fire up their machines, the box will ask which browser they would like to install by default. This will put the Opera name in front of millions of users who probably never considered it. But that's not all. Read more
Microsoft will be adding a ballet screen to European versions of Windows 7 that offers users a choice of default browsers, the EU's European Commission has confirmed today. The EC has is also using this case to pressure Microsoft to do more about interoperability overall. It said Microsoft has agreed to do a better job in making third-party software operate on its server products such as Office and Windows Server. Read more
Microsoft offers free Nickelback track for IE8 and debuts commercial featuring a woman throwing up
Are Microsoft's latest tactics to get folks to download Internet Explorer 8 funny, disgusting, obnoxious or effective? On the one hand, you have the rather pleasant idea that if you download a copy of IE8 you get a never-before released track from rocker band Nickelback. On the other, you have an ad campagn that displays a woman throwing up (multiple times). Not pleasant. Read more
Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer Get the Facts website is just about as truthful as any other campaign that falls somewhere between PR and propaganda. And it's causing the kind of backlash that can't be helpful in increasing the browser's reputation. Hundreds of blog articles refuting the so-called facts have appeared since Microsoft launched the site this week. Read more
It's a bit of a surprise but BetaNews.com is reporting their testing shows Windows 7 RC speeds up browser performance. IE specifically picks up the pace by about 12%. Why is happening? I don't think we know those details. I wonder if Microsoft might have revamped the TCP stack, and if so we should see a speed up in other network applications. Read more
Microsoft this week released a whitepaper to help enterprises fix compatibility issues between their custom applications and Windows 7. Small compatibility fixes are known as shims. But most enterprises don't fully use the power of shims, says whitepaper author Chris Jackson, a member of the Microsoft Windows Application Experience SWAT Team. A critical component of using shims is managing them over the lifetime of the application via a custom shim database. Read more
IE8 includes more security tricks than any previous Microsoft browser. Many of them are well publicized, but several of them require digging and know how. Here are two from product tester Thomas Powell, as part of a larger browser review that revealed 15 secrets of IE8, Firefox and other next-gen browsers, published in Network World.
1. IE8 takes on cross-site scripting Read more
Microsoft has just released an enhancement to their exams that they hope you never need to notice!
The new exam item “plug-ins” are used by Prometric test centers worldwide to support the onscreen appearance and functionality of Microsoft's traditional item types during certification exams – these plug-ins are called each time an item is displayed to a test taker --- over 50 million times a year. Read more
Microsoft is heralding IE8 as the first standards compliant browser. But Internet Explorer 8 has to live in a world that isn’t fully web standards compliant, partly because of IE’s own non-compliant and “unique feature” past sins. Implementation of web coding standards seem about as precise as many network protocols; the details, like the devil (as they say), are in the details of vendors’ implementations. Read more
You know that Web browser Internet Explorer 8 was launched Thursday, available to all, but what you may not know is that, just hours before its release, it was hacked in a contest.
In the same PWN2OWN contest that saw the Mac hacked in 10 seconds, a researcher was able to crack IE8 via a previously unknown vulnerability.
When it comes to browsers, it seems that the main vendors are locked in the old design adage, but with a browser-oriented twist. They can release browsers that are good, fast or secure, but they can only pick one. And Google and Microsoft this week illustrated the point nicely. Read more
The eighth version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer is to be released Thursday.
As Network World's John Fontana writes, the new version of the Web browser includes more corporate features, including tools to customize and control the software centrally. It also has new privacy and security features and is integration with Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager. Read more
This Microsoft Subnet blog has noted recently that IE8 is destined to be an "optional" feature in Windows 7 - but then there's the bloggy speculation that IE8 might actually even be the last version of Internet Explorer ever.
The rumor triggered shouts of glee from certain corners of the Web, as many people would like to see IE go. Read more
European antitrust regulators are giving Microsoft more time to respond to an antitrust complaint over the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. Microsoft's response was due this week but is now due April 21. Read more
UPDATED 03/06/09:Microsoft has confirmed that it will be making Internet Explorer 8 an "optional" feature in Windows 7, according to the company's Engineering Windows 7 blog. Read more
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