Ahh after the official released (19 March 2009) and the marketing heat make by M$ itself, I finally give it a try. Below is my personal experience in using IE8 and it has no intention in causing defamation (LOL!!!)
The good thing about the browser:
New accelerators tool is really cool and it certainly will made your work much faster by just a right click. However, until now the M$ add-on site still lack of programme that support the accelerator function leaving you with the basic window live add-on.
Another thing noted is the web slice function which update your chosen or favourite page almost every time even your didn’t execute IE8. This is great for site like weather forecast, Ebay, Blog page, etc. Ahh the down side of this is you got the function built in your browser but your favourite page code is not updated to use it (how sad it is T_T). This is the likely scenario as the browser is just released and webmaster need time to implement their page with the new IE8.
Here come the bad thing of this internet browser:
The much claimed fastest browser by Microsoft is really a joke actually. Firstly it fail the Chrome Experiments (the browser totally hang once the test start!!!) while Firefox 3 and Google Chrome (of course as the test is designed to test chrome strongest field JAVA & AJAX) render the test effortlessly. Secondly, web surfing is extremely slow compared with Firefox 3 and Google Chrome. However it is faster compared with IE7.
Next is compatibility issue, like the mentioned web slice function most of the site haven’t adopt the new IE8 code. The result of this is the page displayed in a wrongful manner. However, IE8 managed to counter this problem by enabling compatibility button at the side of URL. Although this is extremely useful, sometimes is also annoying as you need to click the compatibility button almost on every page!!!
Last thing to mention in this section is the install process. Although it is quite straight forward but the time to install the programme is actually killing me (~10mins on my laptop and ~20mins on my netbook). This is because the install process consist of download update (yes even I installed it from the full installed kit), scanning malware, install IE8, install IE8 updates and reboot.
Conclusion:
For those of you used to Firefox or Google Chrome, my advice is not worth switching your browser to IE8 as is still SLOWWWWW. and for those who like IE, yes go update your IE to version 8 as the improved feature and speed is undeniable.
For me I’ll stick with my trusty Firefox (main) and Google Chrome (Incognito mode).
PS: The next version of Firefox 3.5 will be out in coming May or Jun. Stay tune as the new version consist of features that will boost web surfing speed!!!