Review: …Internet Explorer 8… Beta…

Ok…yes I have a PC, and yes, I get access to the MSDN. I received an e-mail from MSDN TechNet and whatnot. It would appear Microsoft has released a “new” version of Internet Explorer. Oh this is going to be a fun review.

So I install IE8 and leave the room for an hour or so, only to come back and see my computer decided it needed to download 3 updates, and restart on me. It’s wonderful considering I don’t allow my computer to do that, because the last thing I need is Vista SP1 and not having a crack for it. Oops did I say crack? No of course I didn’t, why would I download a version of an operating system that has more bugs and flaws than it’s predecessors, and seems like it’s still in beta. Sounds like Star Wars Galaxies, no?

Moving on, IE8 looks just like IE7, in fact, it even has a button for developers to emulate Internet Explorer 7. Why would you need it? There really is no noticable difference between the two. Really it should just be an update for IE7 rather than a new program with a new number. So why did they bring out a new one? There must be something revolutionary that has made Microsoft work on a new web browser, rather than fix the operating system it will be running on.

So here we have something called Activities and WebSlices. My understanding at first was Microsoft was adding “Gadgets” to IE8 to make it slower than before with all the random shit running in the background. No, I was wrong, it’s something even stupider. Let me set the scenario for you. If you go to some websites, theres a fuckload of links at the bottom. These include, but are not limited to, add to FaceBook, add to Digg, add to Flickr, add to MySpace, etc. WebSlices allows you to add anything to any of the programs that support this. So far it’s Facebook. Wow. It doesn’t do anything though when you try to use the facebook “Slice”, as it sits there and looks at me like a cute retarded puppy, and does nothing of any use what-so-ever. This is equally as stupid with the eBay “Slice”, where you can highlight anything, and search it on ebay.

Lets focus on the eBay “Slice” for a second. I tried doing this, because I thought it would be cool if Internet Explorer would automatically have a small list of items I was watching/bidding on that were ending soon, so encase I forgot, and was busy watching YouTube or something, I could be reminded. No, I was wrong. It does shit. Whatever it is supposed to do failed, because when I clicked on the eBay Slice, it opened up a blank tab and did jack shit. When it does work, there’s more IE8 advertisements on the page than eBay auction results. You’d figure since you need IE8 to view that page anyway, it’s useless advertising the product. So the “WebSlices” is a piece of shit, waste of an addition to a new program with doesn’t need a new number. Lazy people will love it, because when they are looking up shit on Google, and want to see it on eBay, they only need to click 2 buttons, rather than manually going to the website.

New graphics have been added to IE8 to make it more appealing to users. Such as this useless New Tab splash screen:

Holy shit no way! I opened a new tab, thanks Internet Explorer! I was wondering where the fuck my porn went when I hit Control + T. You’d think after FireFox 1.2, new tab’s wouldn’t scare off people, and we wouldn’t need messages for it. I was happy with the about:blank page I’d get in IE7 when I opened a new tab. It’s useless crap like this that makes me a sad sad beta tester. I’ll probably find something in IE8 that makes it just a slight bit better than it’s older brother IE7, but my brain will hurt to hard to even try and review it any further. I hope next week’s TechNet Flash Update is better, maybe a new Service Pack for Vista will allow me to actually play SimCity Societies without it crashing ever 20 seconds.

If you’re a brave soul and want to check it out for yourself, you can download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1. I wouldn’t recommend it, because it makes my brain hurt. I think I’m going to go to sleep so my eyes don’t pop out of my head because of the headache I have.

Review: FireFox 3 for Macintosh

I heard about FireFox 3 off G4 Tech TV the other day. Mozilla tried to set a world record for most downloads of a new release software in one day. Regardless if they broke the record or not, I will be reviewing what I feel is the worst FireFox release so far. Keep in mind, this is the Macintosh version, so for you Windows lovers, maybe your release is better, quite frankly I don’t care, because I will be reviewing Internet Explorer 8 next.

Let me begin with the first reactions I had when I started up FF3. When I opened it, i checked to make sure it was FireFox, and not Safari 4, because the layout and colour scheme is exactly like Safari. They dropped the colour from the browser, and made it all grey and black. Once I got past the cloned theme, I tried to work with eBay.ca and list some items. FireFox doesn’t seem to update the pages when you access a drop down menu. For example, I needed to select the shipping information in ebay, but every time I did that, the page would not refresh to show the new options. This meant I had to force the page to show that information, by continuing, and getting an error from eBay saying I didn’t fill everything out.

This issue is not an eBay issue, as some of you may have assumed. I was able to do the same operation on Safari 3 with the proper page updates that were required to list items properly. This is definately an issue either with eBay not supporting FF3, or FF3 not working as intended. At the moment, it is impossible to list items properly with FF3 in eBay, and I would assume it will give the same issue in similar situations. 

 

Issue 2 is again a design flaw. Besides the shitty theme design, Mozilla has added some stupid sort of finder code to the address bar. When I type in an address, I want it to autofill the address with whatever is in it’s history, I do not however want every single page I’ve been to in the past 3 years to show up instead. FF3 will show you pages, websites, bookmarks, and probably even google maps locations for anything you type in. If I start to type in www.facebook.com, I want to push the down key and hit enter, and end up at www.facebook.com, not the last 25 million pages on facebook I went to last. I understand the reason for having such a feature, but if I want to search for facebook in my history, I will do so by going into my history.

So far, FireFox 3 has some flaws, but then again, what doesn’t these days. I won’t be using it unless I need to double-log my facebook accounts, and I choose to keep my PC in standby. I’m hoping Mozilla just released it quickly so they could get it out before Safar 4 or IE8. I’d like to see some things get fixed, and maybe I’ll use it at some point. Safari is still my choice at the moment.