IE8 Now on MS Updates

[Duncan Rounding]

I see that the latest MS Update now includes IE8. So MS are now pushing it out to everyone, like it or lump it if you've auto-updates switched on you're getting it.

[Darren B]

i had sort of guessed it would happen soon enough, its a shame they cant force those still using ie6 to change

[Chunkford]

Looks like they are going to support IE6 till 2014

[Paul Bulpit]

I managed to avoid the IE8 update by cancelling it, unfortunately some of my staff were not so wise.

I never went to IE7 because there was comment in the Community about Preview problems, IIRC, so I'm still on IE6, as were my office pc's because at that time, I didn't have the same staff or allow the update.

In the meantime I personally have discovered Firefox and I like it. It looks to me like IE8 emulates many FF features.

But I get the impression that very few online punters use, or have heard of, FF. So any website needs to be optimised for the latest browsers, and I have seen my website, competitors' websites, suppliers' websites, not rendering correctly in IE8.

This is a worry. Not that I've done anything about it.

__________________
Paul

[Chris Gibson]

Do we know if Actinic is testing the new MS offerings (Windows 7 & IE8) for compatibility?

[malbro]

But I get the impression that very few online punters use, or have heard of, FF. So any website needs to be optimised for the latest browsers, and I have seen my website, competitors' websites, suppliers' websites, not rendering correctly in IE8.
__________________
Paul

We get around 17% of visitors that are using FF, 80% with IE and the rest are around 3%

[NicolaUK]

I was caught out by this

And for anyone using RM OBA I was unable to print from within IE8, had to do a system restore.

[pnagames]

I was caught out by this

And for anyone using RM OBA I was unable to print from within IE8, had to do a system restore.

thanks Nicola

just avoided installation for this particular reason

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I was caught out by this

And for anyone using RM OBA I was unable to print from within IE8, had to do a system restore.

Thanks, I think I will hold off on the upgrade to IE8 for now.

I found this on the Royal Mail website:

Using OBA with IE8:

Some customers are experiencing difficulties in using OBA with IE8. In order to resolve these problems can you please turn on the Compatibility View mode for all OBA web pages. To do this click on Tools menu, select Compatibility View Settings and select ADD.

[Duncan Rounding]

I wouldn't be surprised to see MS forcing the install of IE8.

In the past I have purposely unchecked particular updates only to find that they were installed regardless on shutdown. Very frustrating.

[animal dreams]

We get 70% visitors using IE of which 38% are already IE8. But a stubborn 14% are IE6.

Around 20% use FF.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

We get 70% visitors using IE of which 38% are already IE8. But a stubborn 14% are IE6.

Around 20% use FF.

We see around 16% Firefox and 76% IE.

Of IE users we get:
IE 6 - 19%
IE 7 - 39%
IE 8 - 42%

As a % of the total this would be:
Firefox - 16%
IE 6 - 14%
IE 7 - 30%
IE 8 - 32%

IE8 seems to be growing rapidly but unfortunately at the expense of IE7 and not IE6

[Steve G Griggs]

Part of the reason for users still having IE6 is corporate networks where they are unable to, don't want to (or are unable to because of using an o/s that won't run IE8 such as windows 95!) update their company system to use later versions. A few years (2-3) ago I saw a large multinational company still using windows 95, sad but true. The perils of using an unsupported system probably full of security problems for a large company does not bear thinking about.

Those figures for the various browsers agree with the ones I see in our 'stats' as well.

I have noticed that IE8 breaks some Actinic layouts unless you use compatibility modes but FF and Opera are OK .

[Paul Cooper]

During August we got IE6 at 20%, IE7 at 10%, no mention of IE8 but "Internet Explorer" was 8.5%. IE5.5, IE5 and IE2 all under 2%

We use Firefox and IE6 but just tried IE8 and our site looked fine until you attempt to go to the checkout (SSL) and it was blocked. I tried compatibility mode and some other suggestions from the net and no joy. Tried the Argos website and that behaved the same. Uninstalled IE8 and sticking with IE6, now just waiting for IE8 customers to report the same problem to us. IE7 worked fine as does Opera (apart from text colours), Chrome and a few others we tried.

[leehack]

Remember to allow in the stats for your own visits. People reporting higher than average visits via IE6 are often using IE6 themselves and skewing results.