Good reasons to install Internet Explorer 8
Hmmm, the reader thinks — where is this one going?
At the end of 2008, our State of the Web survey found that somewhat less than a third of the designers and developers responding tested their sites in IE8 (though essentially 90% tested in IE7). Granted, IE 8 was still in late beta when we asked the question, but it did surprise me that so few had started testing their sites with what was clearly going to be a significant browsers in the coming months.
Since then, IE 8 has of course been released to the public at large. And Microsoft is working hard to ensure as many folks as possible upgrade — something which we should all support, as the fewer people using IE 6 (or even 7) the better for all our lives.
If you still haven’t installed the latest version of IE, Microsoft has what I consider an excellent incentive. No, not money — food. And not for you, but for the “Feeding America” program.
Wonder whether our friends at Microsoft Australia might consider a partnership with one of the excellent organizations which provides similar services here.
And, if your concern is the challenges running several versions of IE simultaneously for testing, here are some resources addressing this
- http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/30/use-multiple-internet-explorer-versions-simultaneously/
- http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage
And a note of warning from PEte LePage a from the IE team.
I’d love to — I almost switched back to it at home — but we have ‘really useful’ applications that won’t run in it at work. Bring on Window 7…