Is it worth updating to IE8?

Skinny

I've been using IE8 for around 18 months since the early beta. It was always good and the final version is even better.

Upgrade.

Opto - thanks.

Heres a puzzler for some very clever chap / chapess out there..............

My Laptop was fine until yesterday when it developed 2 faults together. Neither is life threatening, but both are a nuisance.

1) On startup, it just sits forever on the manufacturers loading screen. I work round this by hammering the F2 button as I switch it on, which does not take me to any system menu, but does open Windows normally!!

2) The internet works fine, except I cannot access my home page (Sky), either on start, from the little house icon or by typing in the address! All the other computers in my house can, just not this one.

Any suggestions please fellas. I have done a system restore and cleared all my history / cookies etc. all to no avail.

Alan

I can't see any connection between the two, but if you can't get some Internet sites then it could be a virus. See if you can access sites such as microsoft.com and the AV sites.

I'm assuming that you have the laptop networked to the same ADSL router as the other computers in your house.

Skinny,

Given a choice, I'd uninstall IE completely. Unfortunately, IE seems to be needed for the Microsoft updates.

Firefox and Opera are both noticeably faster than IE, imo. Interestingly, 45% of my site traffic comes through users with Firefox 3. IE 6,7 & 8 combined accounts for 42% of the traffic.

Thanks Optimist.

I have now fully updated my spyware/virus stuff and ran a check. I have also allowed windows to do a full update (which included IE8, which is awful). I have run full checks, restarted the offending piece of junk and got rid of the start up problem.

I still cannot connect to sky.com though I can connect to sky.co/news!!!. Everything seems to work except getting through to the e-mail section of sky for the missus to read her e-mail.

Frustrated? You bet......................

Alan

hewittalan6
I got my Sky email working thanks to hilary a long time ago. Does this help?:

hilary - 20 Jan 2008 15:02 - 6507 of 6509
Sky now use Google Mail and the settings have changed.

O/G

smtp.tools.sky.com
use SSL
Port 465

I/C

pop.tools.sky.com
Port 995

Use your full email address as username

You'll also need to check their webmail regularly as they put a lot straight into spam so it never reaches Outlook

hilary - 21 Jan 2008 06:36 - 6509 of 6509
Forgot to mention that you must also enable POP downloads in your Sky Email account online.

Thanks for that Bolshi, but not really, because its in a language I can't understand!!!

Anyway, suddenly the darn thing has started working for no reason I can see, so fingers crossed and thanks to all for their help.

Alan

Can anyone tell me how I get rid of IE8 and re-install IE7??

Thanks,

Alan

Hi again Alan. I've done it twice now :-((
Go to Start - Control Panel & Add/Remove Programs. It'll give you a list. IE8 is on it.
When you uninstall IE8 you automatically get IE7 back.
I'm glad it's not just me that's had problems with it.

Although I admit to liking IE8 and Microsoft in general, I do understand that there are other browsers that some people prefer to IE. What I can't understand is why anyone prefers IE7 over IE8.

IE8 is more secure, faster and more stable than IE7 and if you don't like the new look, you can set it to be like IE7.

I found I.E. 8 slower than 7 but what made me revert was that after my weekly housekeeping I have to reinstall adobe flash player to get moneyam to show the home page. 8 showed that I needed to install but wouldn't let me do it. No doubt something in my settings was blocking it but I couldn't find it, so unistalled 8 and hid it in the updates.

I've heard of problems with Adobe. Try uninstalling all Adobe software and then reinstalling.

Thanks Optimist,
as I say I'm quite happy to revert to 7. there were a few other niggles with 8 so I'll give them a few months to iron out the bugs and give it another try.

Have you tried running IE8 in compatability mode for the sites you have trouble with?

O
What's compatability mode please? I've never heard of it.

Opti - yes tried that

Bolshi

IE8 compatability mode causes it to render the page exactly as IE7 would.

Click the button at the end of the address bar and immediately to the left of the refresh button, or on the Tools menu, you can specify entire sites (or all sites) that should use this setting.

Compatibility mode is sometimes useful, because IE8 is the only browser to adhere strictly to the HTML spec. Unfortunately, most webpages are written to take account of the various fudges that other browsers - especially IE6 & 7 - use and can't cope with a browser that complies with the rules.

O. Thanks.
Ahah! I've never noticed that. I'll give that a bash.
1 of my main problems with IE8 is with the Royal Mail site that I use for my online mail orders. With IE8 it crashes when printing, but with IE7 it's good. Not sure that the compatability thingy will help with that one but I'll give it a go next time.
Thx again.