IE 8

[Dave]

I hate to say it, but I'm back to using IE 8, at least for a while.
It is pretty fast. I miss the function of Firefox, but the browser was just slowing down too much. Whatever the hell for it was using all the CPU cycles is beyond me. And I tried all the speed up tricks I could find mentioned in the FF forums.

I do like Chrome and especially Safari (for Windows,) but they don't work well with Proboards forums.

[dicknaegele]

Is that what causes my hard drive to whirr and roar when it is downloading stuff? I have also noticed that firefox runs quite slow and takes a few minutes to boot when I turn on the computer in the morning. I will have to open IE instead and leave firefox alone for a while and see how it works out.

I have both IE8 and FF on my computers. FF is getting very slow and cumbersome to use. It is a shame. I downloaded it originally because it had so many advantages over the IE that I was using a couple of years ago.

[Dave]

It's truly painful to watch FF shoot itself in plain sight. Their usage numbers are dropping off rapidly, I've read. I can't imagine what's wrong with their developers that they can't fix the damned browser. Maybe the free browser paradigm (and no other cash cows like Google, etc.) works only for a while, and not so well when competition is getting keen and your software product has grown larger and more unwieldy than the Queen Mary.

I don't notice the speed problem so much on my desktop (3.3 GHz., 2 GB memory), but on the smaller laptop it's becoming impossible to use, even if I want to take my anti-virus software (Prevx) down, and I don't.

[westmoguy]

IE 9 is coming out soon. Watch out for an auto download if you're liking IE8

[Dave]

Good reminder, Westmo. I'll see if I can turn off the auto upgrade feature.
Thanks, Dave

[keith]

I learned about a couple features available in IE8 while reading a review of the IE9 beta. Obviously, they have been around for awhile but I never noticed them before. Both involve opening links from a site.

If you hold down the Cpntrol key while clicking the link, it will automatically open it in a new tab rather than sometimes a new window.

If you right click on the link, you are offered a variety of options for opening the link. Choosing Open in a New Tab opens a tab that is color coded to the tab you age linking from. I find that useful when reading from a link rich page. (A couple newspapers are kind enough to email me a summary of what they find important each day.) One glance at the bar can tell me that all the yellow tabs go together and are a separate topic from the green tabs.

I also learned that I am in a very small minority (1%) of IE users who have a folder in their favorites bar.

[Dave]

Hey, those are neat! Thanks.