Should You Give IE8 Another Try?

Internet Explorer 8 has had a difficult time right from the start. The browsing speed still is not what we would expect, while Google actually focused on the browsing speed when releasing Chrome.

But more important was the stricter compliance to the W3c standards for HTML, XHML and CSS implemented in IE 8. This resulted in a lot of websites not showing properly. Older websites were all build with the lenient, or flexible implementation of the W3C standards in the older Internet Explorer versions. As a result they do not always render properly in IE8.

The first update of IE 8, Internet Explorer 8 beta 2, included a compatibility view, which is basically a button that the user can click to view the current website in the same way IE 7 would render it. Internet Explorer 8 itself decides when to show the button and when not. As a result users will not always know what mode is used to view the website, although IE 8 does show a balloon tip when switching to compatibility mode.

As you can imagine, the use of the compatibility mode is not all that user-friendly. All you want when browsing the internet is for it to be fast and simple. Even though IE8 remembers the sites that were viewed with compatibility mode, any new site you browse can have layout problems again.

The next thing Microsoft has come up with is to include a standard list of sites that require the compatibility mode. The next Internet Explorer update will enable the user to use this standard list.
Since the list is actually based on feedback from beta users, it is expected to help a lot in showing older websites better without the need for user intervention.

So should you try IE8 again?

Well, if you are really eager to use the new features of Internet Explorer 8, maybe. But considering the beta aspect of IE8, it never harms to wait a bit longer if you have no problems using IE7.
Another thing to consider is using Mozilla FireFox 3 or Google Chrome. Mozilla has made a lot off improvements in version 3, while Google very recently took Chrome out of the beta stage.