I find myself using IE more and more these days. Firefox is getting a bit overloaded and slow, and crashing on me all the time. Once IE9 is out in full swing, I'm sure I can migrate completely to IE and not need to switch between browsers ever.

Congrats guys! Cant wait for the IE 9 beta to arrive!

Well this is the wrong time to say how guilty I feel for beginning a one-week trial of defaulting Firefox. I'm sorry guys, I just really, really hate the Compatibility View button in IE8; it makes it seem like the browser is broken and I have to manually fix it by clicking on the dreaded button. I really hope that in IE9 I can finally hide it and not worry about standards compatibility.

@Albert

Personally, I never have to actually use the button, which is why I opted to just hide the button, because like you, I found it distracting. If you want to do so, just right click on the favorites bar, (Basically anywhere below the address bar but above the actual page) and hit "Compatibility View Button". Disabling it gives the browser a cleaner look so enjoy.

Until IE gets as compatible as Chrome does I'll be sticking with that. Even the Chrome dev build has been more stable than IE8 was on Vista. I also wish IE would implement cloud bookmark/extension/cookie storage a-la Chrome but I suppose we'll have to wait and see on that front.

I admit, I use Firefox as my default browser (even right now), but I still have and use IE8 on a frequent basis because of sites that simply require it, or because I just prefer to use it at any given moment. Firefox has admittedly become very slow over the past couple years, and that does irritate me a lot, plus I do a lot of web design work, so I find myself back in IE frequently to test compatibility with my designs.

Honestly, if IE's handling of RSS feeds worked a little more like the Feed Sidebar plugin by cfinke, I would make the switch back full time. I really dislike the RSS function in IE, and I don't like inbox approach to RSS feeds found in Outlook and Windows Live Mail either. I already have SimpleAdblock for IE now, so that solves my only other major need for IE. I would love to see you guys buy/license/emulate cfinke's idea in IE9.

PS-- tell Adobe to get off their butts and release a 64-bit IE-compatible Flash plugin!!

I used IE by default until Firefox first appeared with its "tab thing", and I used firefox until IE got its own tab system.

It is true that Firefox grew to be a slow browser, and Chrome is really fast, but I just like the IE, as some pages just don't work fine in Chrome, and, to be honest, I used Firefox just for the tabs =P

I sometimes install those two just for testing purpouses only, but I'm really pleased with IE right now and I don't see any motive to switch to another one.

I really want to congratulate you for the Usage Share. Just keep working hard on this so more people likes it.

Anyway, I have some suggestions to do.

1) Could it be possible to drag a tab out to open a new window or drag a tab from one windows to another?

2) Wouldn't it be nice if the "View Source" option let you edit the source and preview the changes, even without saving anything, just to let us see how would a change in the source reflect in the page? I think that could be very handy to many out there.

@Interframe

Waiting for a new release here too ;)

@Resplendent

Well, as part of Windos Live Sync Beta, IE bookmarks (the entire Favorites folder) can be saved to the Skydrive and synced in all the computers you want. But it would be really great that we could "log in" in the IE using a Windows Live ID, so it loads and saves all our user information without need to be logged on WLSync.

@GoodThings2L

I really hope Adobe to do its job. It is unbelieveable that so many years passed and we still don't have a 64-bit plugin. I believe they know we want it (they must know now at least), but I don't know what are they waiting for.

That market share will soon go down as IE9 drops XP support. No one likes using an outdated browser with deficient standards support (IE8 will be so deficient in standards support once IE9 arrives). Microsoft made the wrong decision by dropping XP support while it has hundreds of millions of XP customers. The rendering improvements should have been provided at the very least.

There's an Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview. May be not "a beta", or a browser as many could want, but is a sneak into how the new IE9 could work.

ie.microsoft.com/.../Default.html

I love using IE and I am anticipating the release of IE 9. However, does anyone know if IE 9 will have a built-in spell checker? Every other browser I tried has one and it'll be nice if it did as well, but I've yet to come across any information regarding that. So if anyone knows, please let me know. Thanks!

Only when Microsoft deliveres Windows WITHOUT builtin browser, and the user must make its own choice for browser, there will be a possibility for market share comparison. Until then these numbers are not a good comparison, as Microsoft takes an unfair advantage as only IE is delivered and installed with Windows.

@barts2108  Macs only ship with Safari and Linux builds usually come with Firefox/Iceweasel, so are you saying that all OS's should have the choice screen?  And if you remember correctly, Windows 7 had to have the choice screen in Europe, and even then there were problems with people complaining.  Granted half the browsers had the Trident engine, but it still left people complaining when MS only chose the highest used browsers.

Honestly, I barely use IE.  Granted right now I'm using the Beta of Firefox so my IE Tab extension doesn't work, but when I had Fx 3.6.8, the IE Tab button was what I used when I needed IE for a page.  I am, however, looking forward to IE9 greatly.

@Richard Borkovec

The choice screen comes afterwards for most users and is only meant to install another browser in addition to IE.  Furthermore, MS forces new versions of IE through Windows update ... uhm.. windows update it says, not browser update. I know this will never ever become a fair comparison as long as IE is a core part of the OS (Safari is not a core part of Mac OS nor is Firefox to linux).

When MS allows me to completely remove IE and all of its components, a better comparison will be possible.

@Albert @CaptainStark

The Compatibility View Button exists as part of our commitment to interoperability and support for web standards.  IE8 has the ability to render content as defined by web standards (HTML 4.01, CSS 2.1 etc), or as IE7 did.  Since the majority of the web is coded to be compatible with IE7 the obvious choice was to ship in IE7 mode.  However, we took the view that to help drive the adoption of web standards, we needed IE8 to render content as defined by web standards.  The net result would be that some content written for IE7 wouldn't display correctly so we added the compatibility view button so that users could switch between modes (blogs.msdn.com/.../just-the-facts-recap-of-compatibility-view.aspx) and users would be able to continue to use their favorite sites.

We added the compatibility view list (blogs.msdn.com/.../compatibility-view-list-and-ie8-rtw.aspx) so that users would get the compatible behavior by deafult for many top sites and put measures in place so that as sites became compatible with IE8 standards mode they could be taken off the list.  Long term, as more of the old sites that were written for IE7 and haven't been updated go away and as active sites begin to send their standards code to IE8, you'll see the compatibility view button pop up less and less - it only appears today if it isn't clear what the developers intention was in their code (IE7 or standards).

You should feel good that the compat button is there because it gives you the ability to use sites that otherwise wouldn't work in IE8.  If you do hide the button, you can still switch sites in to compatibility mode by going to Tools -> Compat View Settings.

@Resplendent

I'm not sure what you mean by IE being as "compatible" as Chrome.  In terms of compatibility with web sites, IE8 is highly compatible which makes me think you might mean something else.

@Bruno Giordano

1)  Thanks for the suggestion.

2) Have you pressed F12 to bring up the developer tools in IE8 / IE9 Platform Preview?  It gives you the ability to do exactly what you need (edit HTML, CSS live, profile JavaScript etc).

@barts2108

We've certainly looked at shipping Windows without Internet Explorer as part of our recent work to comply with European competition law : blogs.technet.com/.../working-to-fulfill-our-legal-obligations-in-europe-for-windows-7.aspx

In the end, it isn't in the interests of consumers to have an operating system without a browser so to comply with European competition law, we instead offer users the Browser Choice Screen giving them a choice of the 12 most popular browsers by market share, with the top 5 browsers presented in a random order : blogs.technet.com/.../working-to-fulfill-our-legal-obligations-in-europe-for-windows-7.aspx

It's interesting that when users were presented with a choice of browsers in the EU, that IE share in Europe actually grew last month : windowsteamblog.com/.../net-applications-share-update-for-june.aspx

I've seen a couple of people suggest that IE8 share is purely a result of adoption of Windows 7.  Keep in mind that Windows 7 was launched October 2009.  Go take a look at Net Applications data for September 2009 (www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx) and you might be surprised to find how many people were using Internet Explorer 8 before we launched Windows 7.

As Richard Borkovec said, Windows ships with IE, Mac ships with Safari and Linux builds usually come with Firefox/Iceweasel. Remember that Crhome OS ships with Chrome... So what the problem in here? I see none.

I'm testing Firefox 4.0 beta 2 right now (since yesterday night). But back to the old days when I only used Firefox (because of the tabs), having IE installed didn't bother me: I just didn't use it and never wonder about removing it at all. What it makes a few more megabytes on harddrive massured in gigabytes?

@James Pratt

LOL, I still can't believe I didn't realise about the Developer Tools I already had in IE8.

Thanks a lot for the tip ;)

@James Pratt

"and you might be surprised to find how many people were using Internet Explorer 8 before we launched Windows 7."

It does not surprise me. I think 90% of these users get a PC with automatic updates installing automatically (without asking)... Thus Microsoft is changing their browser version without those people knowing it.

@barts2108

I think the point you're trying to make here is that Internet Explorer 8 momentum is largely because we use Automatic Update to upgrade people from old versions and as such you don't believe people are actively choosing IE8.

We have a number of customers we think about when we take decisions about IE : people who use the browser to browse the web like you and I (users), people who build websites (developers) and people who manage PCs at businesses (IT Pros). We balance the needs of those different customers for every decision we take.

If you talk to developers, they'll tell you to get everyone on the newest version of IE as quickly as possible and they often ask us to be more aggressive with how we update users.  Compare how Internet Explorer upgrades between versions to - for example - Chrome and Firefox and you'll see that we're actually less aggressive than our competitors.  The fact that there are still people using IE6 and IE7 in the world tells you that the IE8 upgrade isn't automatic.

Contrast the view of developers with those of an IT Pro.  If you talk to an IT Pro, they'll ask you to never upgrade the 100s or 1000s of PCs they manage because they have business applications that rely on a particular version of a particular browser.

We believe that our customers should be able to choose when they upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer but we also want them to have the benefit of the latest user experience and security features.  As a result, we offer the latest version of Internet Explorer through Automatic Update but make sure that users have to take action in Automatic Update to install it - it won't be installed without prompting.  Automatic Update also respects the users default browser so even if you update to IE8 you are only asked if you want it to become the default once you actually start it.  There's a more detailed explanation on our engineering blog here : http://is.gd/dhG83.  Note that Internet Explorer is consistent with the behavior of other browsers with respect changing the browser default.

I hope that clears up a few things for you.  Users have to take action to install IE8 and the way they are offered Internet Explorer 8 is consistent with the rest of the browser landscape.  And remember, in Europe where users were offered browser alternatives through the Browser Choice Screen, IE share actually grew.

I dislike the way IE is so tied in with the OS.  When it comes to the issue of upgrading to the latest version of IE, I see it as a security issue and therefore proceed with the upgrade even though I'm not a big user of it.  Upgrading IE is a far less pleasant experience compared to upgrading FF, I don't want to reboot the OS and answer a barrage of stupid question.  Suggested Site? Search Provider Updates? Accelerators? Compatibility View Updates?  Hard questions to answer for the average user.  The problem with the Express Settings option is everything is on by default.  I would like an off by default option please.  Or even just a check box beside the list of options so I could just go click, click, click, done.  

PS. Why is History found under Favorites?  Took me ages to find it.  However, Delete Browsing History was easy to find. Strange.

@James Pratt

Exactly... those IE6 and 7 users (at work I am one of it) is because the IT department blocks the IE8 update in windows update.  What you mention "And remember, in Europe where users were offered browser alternatives through the Browser Choice Screen, IE share actually grew." I would not mention that it is an alternative but an addition.

IMHO an alternative is that I have another browser installed and completely removed IE and all of its components.

As long as that is not possible, a OS integrated browser forced to install upon every OS installation has a market share that cannot be compared to a stand alone browser.

Wow ! IE9

Exciting that IE8 has dominated the market! IE 8's interface is sleek and uncluttered but at the same time appealing!!!

Suddenly, what began as an aberration is a trend: Microsoft's undeservedly maligned Internet Explorer

IE8 si conferma il browser del momento. La crescita registrata da Net Application nel mese di luglio

Publicado originalmente en Exploring IE blog , por Ryan Gavin , Director de Negocios y Mercadotecnia

Internet Explorer 9 Beta made its debut earlier this month and was met with warm reception by our customers