Friday, January 16, 2009

IE8: The killer browser in Windows 7?

I'm a Firefox user. In last couple of years I have always thought that the various Internet Explorers were rather slow and heavy, and Internet Explorer 8 was no different. Today, I installed Firefox on Windows 7, and as usual, I've set Firefox as my default browser. However, after a few minutes I understood that one of the main features of Windows 7 isn't working with Firefox, and I set Internet Explorer 8 as my default browser.

If you've read anything about Windows 7, you probably know about the "Aero peek", the feature that enables you to easily browse between open windows of the same application. With Internet Explorer 8, each tab is treated is a separate Window, and so, it is easy to browse between tabs. This feature is not available with Firefox.

IEAeroPeek

The second feature, which is a great addition, is the download progress. When you download files, you see a progress bar on the IE icon in the task bar. That way, you don’t have to check the download window each time.

IEProgress

A third feature is that when a tab crashes, it doesn’t bring down the entire IE session. Only the tab crashes, and then restarts in the same location!

So, IE is now my default browser. The only thing I really miss is the spell checker.

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