Is IE 8 good for IM???

IE8 is much better than IE7 - more stable, more secure, better plugin architecture, better memory usage. Since you're using IE anyway, you should upgrade.

It won't make a massive difference. Most of the changes just shave a second or two off things a lot of people do frequently. It adds up, and helps you stay in the flow of things better. If you're an IE jockey (like I am), pretty much every IE release is worth getting once you're confident it's stable. I tend to get them in beta, myself.

Your post actually asks if it's "good for IM?".

If that means "is it the best browser to use for IM?" then I would have to say no, Firefox with its wealth of plugins is the "Best browser to use for IM".

But if the question is "do I need to get IE8 for my IM work?" the the answer then is yes, you need to update. But ideally you also need another machine (or virtual machine) that can run IE7, and you really need another one for IE6 as well! In fact if the IE9 Beta was released today I'd find another machine and install it as well!

If you are an Internet Marketer or a Web Developer you need every version of IE you can get your hands on, as well as Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome. You need to be able to see how your web sites display on every major browser platform. If possible, you also need to have a Mac and a LINUX machine loaded up with browsers as well.

Internet Explorer is the most problematic of the whole bunch, which is why you really need to have a copy of every version from 6 up.

There are literally thousands of browser and platform combinations that users may be viewing your site on, and you need to test on as many as you can get your hands on. It would be a real shame to find out that your latest marketing campaign has a payment button that doesn't work correctly for Mac users, or that you have a video that makes the page unusable on everything but Internet Explorer. A double-shame if you used PPC to attract those potential buyers in the first place.

Of course having this many machines is unpractical for some, so a visit to browsershots.org is the next best thing! It provides a static view of your site on a multitude of browsers and platforms.

Bill

What I meant was that I had heard that IE was going to add some things to make social bookmarking "easier" or faster. I was wondering if anyone had played with it in that regard.

I did install it. I like it so far, but is there a way to get rid of that Live search bar in the upper right hand corner?

Thanks.


-joel

You need to install it to see what your sites look like with it.

I installed it and the look of all of my sites changed in it - not for the better.

I had to make some corrections in the coding of my sites and now they are ok in IE 6, 7 and 8.

A lot of people are getting IE 8 put on their computers with the Microsoft automatic updates on their computers so you better see what your site looks like in IE 8.

if your not using firefox you are missing out big time

For a power user, and specially for an IMer firefox is the best choice, makes my work a lot easier. If I've to do those same things with IE or Chrome, it would take an hour for where it only takes half with firefox.