Right everyone, my laptop runs Vista, has IE 7, Safari and Firefox 3 browsers loaded. I must admit that I am using the Firefox most of the time as it is really quick. IE 7 is ponderous but I do use it sometimes for example if I want to save images into my photo files on Vista.

I was wondering if I should leave IE 7 as it is or upgrade to 8? I have heard bad things about 8 ie it "hangs" and crashes even more than 7 and is nowhere near as fast as Firefox or Safari. Should i leave alone?

Just quickly, anyone use Chrome?

Right everyone, my laptop runs Vista, has IE 7, Safari and Firefox 3 browsers loaded. I must admit that I am using the Firefox most of the time as it is really quick. IE 7 is ponderous but I do use it sometimes for example if I want to save images into my photo files on Vista.

I was wondering if I should leave IE 7 as it is or upgrade to 8? I have heard bad things about 8 ie it "hangs" and crashes even more than 7 and is nowhere near as fast as Firefox or Safari. Should i leave alone?

Just quickly, anyone use Chrome?

I have been on ie 8 for a week or so now. Yes its just as bad as 7 imho. I'm no IT boffin, far fom it. Previously I used Google Chrome which is very fast, doesn't take up too much valuable power from my humble laptop - the only problem I had with chrome is the world is set up for IE, so occasionally i had to revert back to using 7, but it was only very occasionally.

I'm running XP with ie 8, as Vista was slowing my laptop down too much. I am about to switch back to chrome in all honesty.

Chrome is quick but not particularly user friendly.

My suggestion is to stick with Firefox and install Adblockplus and IE View for the times when you do need Internet Explorer.

There are hundreds of great addons for Firefox. I currently have about 30 installed.

IE8 is crap. I uninstalled it (thank god you can) because its so painfully slow.

Yup IE8 is very slow. Even worse than v7 IMO.

Can load a page in 3 to 4x the speed in FF!

Oddly, I found IE8 to be faster at loading pages then FF3!

Not here it isnt. Dual core Intel running Vista Ultimate and 2GB ram.

I agree with Babs, IE8 appears very fast - never bothered measuring or anything but appears much 'snapper' than IE7 and FF. However I still browse with FF3 or 3.5b(x).

Not here it isnt. Dual core Intel running Vista Ultimate and 2GB ram.

Intel Quad Core, 4GB RAM here

I have IE8 and i can't tell teh differance between IE7 or IE8, but there again i' computer daft.

Been using IE8 since release on all my computers, it seems much faster than IE7 on my machines.

Been using IE8 since release.

Ditto - very stable, no issues at all.

Working fine despite only having 2GB RAM and measly DuoCore.

Intel Quad Core, 4GB RAM here

Same here and find it much much faster to use than IE7 tbh.

Starts up in seconds and loads pages very fast.

To be quite honest I have become a bit of a Firefox junkie now as it loads up pages virtually instantaneously and is really user friendly. I may may try to load IE 8 again but gave up after trying to load the thing and then having problems. That is something that I would have against it as Firefox loaded really quickly as well. I am also pleasantly surprised with Safari which I got with my itunes update.

I'll hold counsel on 8.

Cheers all for the response.

Have no add-ons enabled! And as for re-installing, well I never had to re-install Firefox because it's slow.

Microsoft lost me as a full time user of IE back on version 5 once I found the speed and tabbed browsing FF offered.

This site loads in half the time on a firefox browser. Perhaps because it's independent of the OS

Some web sites that I use on a daily basis just don't work with IE8. I know that's more an issue with the site than with IE, but I had to uninstall it just so I could work.

Phil

Some web sites that I use on a daily basis just don't work with IE8. I know that's more an issue with the site than with IE, but I had to uninstall it just so I could work.

Phil

That is indeed poor programing by the website creators. IE8 is now more standards compliant than earlier versions.

For sites that I have problems with, most are solved by hitting the compatibilty button that appears after the website address which makes IE8 work more like an older version.

BUT if IE actually followed coding compliance properly, then it would simply work out of the box

on both of my winXP machines I have found IE8 faster than IE7.

Also findig IE8 faster than IE7, and working better. Had a few problems initially, but it seems to have bedded in. Quite like the accelerators.

I use Firefox3, 90% of the time and occasionally use IE6 or Opera. Can you on IE 7 or 8 save the tabs so that are open when it starts up, as you can in FF and Opera?

I use Firefox3, 90% of the time and occasionally use IE6 or Opera. Can you on IE 7 or 8 save the tabs so that are open when it starts up, as you can in FF and Opera?

IE8 you have an option to reopen the last browsing session - which is great until using it causes the browser to crash and thus loose your last browsing session

BUT if IE actually followed coding compliance properly, then it would simply work out of the box

With version 8, IE now does follow coding practices out of the box this is the problem. A lot of websites have been written with earlier versions of IE in mind, its these sites that now have problems. The compatibility button puts back some of the functionality lost by default, so the issues are not IE, but the website author.

Just to throw something else into the mix...

Ive just installed Safari v4.. and im liking it

Using it on Win7 and its using some of the win7 ui features (ala IE8) - seems bloody fast too!

In terms of speed, (note: figures from apples presentation at wwdc)

IE 8 being x1

Latest firefox was like 3x ie8

Chrome was 5x ie8

and the new safari 4 is 8x ie8

I run both apple and microsoft and personally prefer safari to all its competitors.