How is IE8 even usable? | The Coffeehouse

intelman

Just got my copy of Windows 7 RTM from connect, the OS is just as fabulous as it was in the RC stages. The weakest point of 7 is IE8 still.

It is truly hard to use to. I see this dialogue on a few regular sites I visit, such as LifeHacker, Anandtech, and Phonedog.

Other browsers seem to handle those sites fine.... I have two additional plugins installed after a fresh install. Silverlight and Flash.

Pretty bad experience out of the box.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

This isn't an IE issue, just the sites you're using haven't done their scripts correctly Smiley

Are you visiting those sites in compatibility mode or not?

intelman

In reply to W3bbo

#Aug 8th @ 12:20 PM

Default.

Reguardless of whose fault it is, it still makes IE8 unusable. If I can simply install Chrome or Firefox default settings and browse to those sites no problem, there is something wrong. Microsoft should be easier.

stevo_
Human after all

What does 'Microsoft should be easier' even mean? I fail to see how this is microsofts fault.. if anything, the fact they've detected an abusive script and allowed you to stop it is a good thing.

joechung

The sites you mentioned come up fine for me on IE 8. Do you have specific URL's at those sites where you are seeing misbehaving scripts?

Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)

That's the advertisements or Flash. Those usually have bad scripts. Smiley

JoshRoss
A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent.

I don't understand why people complain about IEx. They load msn and bing just fine, those are probably the only properties Microsoft could possibly make money (through advertising). What other incentive does MSFT actually have in making it work any better? It's a race to the bottom.

If I were Steve Ballmer, I would probably stick with the same strategy of making the good-enough browser while expending the least amount of effort possible. If mozilla, opera, apple, and google want to throw mad money around to create a product that they give away, let them.

Even worse, competition actually makes the browsers more compelling, reducing the roll of the OS, one of the business units that has always been profitable.

intelman

In reply to joechung

#Aug 8th @ 3:02 PM

http://lifehacker.com/5332071/rainmeter-10-brings-the-enigma-desktop-to-everyone?skyline=true&s=i

Hell even MSN has done it to me now. It does seem to be specific parts of these sites though, but sometimes I cannot consistantly reproduce it. Perhaps the timeout for these scripts is too soon.

AndyC

In reply to intelman

#Aug 8th @ 8:07 PM

Given that the page managed to lock the browser up for a minute or two here I don't think the time out is too short. My suspicions lie with some badly written AJAX code used by the adverts somewhere.

joechung

In reply to JoshRoss

#Aug 8th @ 7:43 PM

It would suck if the Web version of Office didn't run as well on Internet Explorer as it did on the other browsers. Ditto Hotmail, Windows Live, Windows Azure-based cloud applications, SharePoint, etc.

exoteric
I : Next<I>

In reply to JoshRoss

#Aug 8th @ 7:43 PM

Well, you know Microsoft is also developing a major product they give away. It's called the .Net. It's very narrow-sighted to look at the browser itself as a black hole for spending money. It's a platform - and it's not a browser war as much anymore, it's a platform war.

I say don't complain about browsers, just use the one you prefer. That's the most brutal form of feedback there is.

Marketshare.

On the other hand, I can't follow this maxim completely, it's too tempting to "suggest" (but at least that's a constructive form of criticism; even if destructive criticism is constructive by the flip of the coin.)

vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

In reply to intelman

#Aug 8th @ 8:07 PM

I think you are missing the point. Where you get that error message (and I get it on Vista as well), it means that the website you are viisiting has some dodgy code, and all the other browers you say are brilliant, are actually turds.

intelman

There is a pause on almost all of lifehacker pages now.

I have had it happen on 2 microsoft properties. Bing and MSN. One google site, google finance. What is one to do. Email all the webmasters and hope they listen?

It is just incredibly annoying. At the very least, IE should handle these slightly better, so they would error out before the browser locks up. Sadly, sometimes one has to take into account bad code to make a better product.

CreamFilling512

And in Firefox the whole browser will lock up instead of one tab. Anyway, they shouldn't be using a modal dialog, thats the only issue I can see with this.

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

In reply to intelman

#Aug 9th @ 11:37 AM

It's weird, because I don't see the problem. What do you have installed? Toolbars, addons, antivirus...

intelman

In reply to PaoloM

#Aug 9th @ 12:22 PM

Silverlight, Flash and the Windows Live Sign-in Helper. No anti virus software. I am seeing it on my desktop and laptop.

If it truly isn't experienced elsewhere, the only cause I can think of is my gateway device somehow causing issues. Though one of those addons, especially flash, could cause the issue. But one would think the world would be freaking out if that were the case. Kind of hard to surf the net without it Sad

spivonious

I reproduced the error on XP with that LifeHacker link. Before it came up IE was unresponsive for about 10-15 seconds. Maybe the script has an infinite loop or something?

I'd rather have IE automatically stop the script rather than prompt me, but anything is better than just locking up until the script finishes.

intelman

In reply to spivonious

#Aug 10th @ 7:50 AM

Good to know.

IE's behavior should probably change. It is unfortunate that websites still do not work nicely with IE. I guess that is why university discourages the install of IE8 and provides instructions on how to remove it Wink

Another 3 years until another IE relesase?

stevo_
Human after all

In reply to intelman

#Aug 10th @ 8:00 AM

What behavior do you want, how do you not grasp the problem..

Mr Man makes some javascript for his page/ad, the code sucks- probably is doing something different for IE.

The script runs, and gets 'hot', ie- its going on forever.. IE realizes this, and asks you.. young lady, I know you be busy n all that, but this page is probably fkd, SHOULD I stop it?

How can IE possibly have better behavior, not only did it discover the site is doing something wrong and tell you, but it even let you ignore it if you so wished.

exoteric
I : Next<I>

In reply to stevo_

#Aug 10th @ 8:49 AM

Why it should have silently nuked the script and issued a request for an Azure-backed DDoS attack against the site, of course!

intelman

In reply to stevo_

#Aug 10th @ 8:49 AM

If one cannot see how this is bad for usability then whatever....

It really does not matter too much whose fault it is, the fact is that it happens and it sucks.

stevo_
Human after all

In reply to intelman

#Aug 10th @ 10:40 AM

It tis bad for usability, its terrible.. but the fault is the guy who wrote the script.. by your argument you could well say that windows should make it impossible for applications to do the same thing.

AndyC

In reply to intelman

#Aug 10th @ 10:40 AM

To paraphrase Raymond Chen, it's not enough to say it sucks, you need to say what it should do. How should IE handle the situation where a script seems to be taking an extraordinary amount of time to run and is hogging CPU time? What would you do better?

Ubuntu

In reply to AndyC

#Aug 10th @ 11:50 AM

How should IE handle the situation where a script seems to be taking an extraordinary amount of time to run

Improve your javascript engine to make it run faster would be a good start - or even better - switch to a browser that already has that feature such as Chrome.

AndyC

In reply to Ubuntu

#Aug 10th @ 12:14 PM

How much faster does it need to be to finish an infinite loop?