I may be missing the point, but you know that you can just use another browser – even Safari if you must. I am not clear what IE being pants (which it is) has to do with whether or not to make the move to Windows 7.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying Windows 7. Yeah dump IE and get Firefox though. It really is pants

IE8 -

“Why, for instance, does a URL redirect from bit.ly seem to fry IE’s brains? Or why with three tabs open does it grind to a halt and simply pretend to open a page?”

These are not issues I have encountered. And, let’s be honest, this was supposed to be a blog about your experience with Windows 7 not IE8.

If we’re generous and put indulge your side-tracking into IE8:

“So it’s been a few years since I used IE in anger” – really? And you’re a journalist. How odd.

“On my Mac I use Safari and, I’m not just saying this, it suits me fine. It’s not the greatest thing since sliced bread and neither is it full of magic and ponies.” – so we have a decent basis to consider the rest of your comments on.

“However, I’ve found Internet Explorer on Windows 7 to be a pain in the proverbial: slow, stuttering and prone to crashing. In all, IE is just a bit rubbish. In fact, so far IE has been the only part of my Windows 7 experience that’s been anything less than moderately good.”

Two strings here…firstly, one would wonder what about IE in Windows 7 is slow, stuttering and prone to crashing. Can you provide empirical evidence to prove that your experience is true? Secondly, I’m sure you agree that the term “good” either is or isn’t, we cannot have “moderately good” let alone “less than moderately good”.

“Perhaps it’s my Apple-centric way of working, but Internet Explorer simply isn’t a tool I’d trust to get me through the day” – I’m not sure I understand…doesn’t IE give you access to the internet and all the sites you need to access?

“Also, is the interface supposed to be so appalling? Perhaps it’s me, but the orphaned extra toolbar off to the right-hand side doesn’t make much sense. And then there’s the two Tools menus: one in the aforementioned toolbar and another in the Menu Bar toolbar (which is, admittedly, optional), both of which have different things in them. Have I missed something? Since when do applications have two menus with the same name that have different items in them? Please, please tell me that I am missing something and my tiny Apple-addled brain hasn’t seen the bigger picture”

Clearly, this is you. Do you really find the interface “appalling”? Get real and wake up fellah, clearly it works. To call the interface appalling because it is not what you’re use yo or what you would design is ridiculous.

“If Safari were this bad I’d have switched to one of the other browsers quickly, and that’s what I’ve done with IE.” – obviously you’ve switched to Safari for Windows then?

“Google Chrome is my new default browser. Given that in the coming years it’ll be Google and not Apple that poses the biggest threat to Microsoft’s dominance this doesn’t bode well for the second largest Mac developer and manufacturer of the world’s leading operating system and browser.”

And here I was thinking this was a blog about whether Windows 7 could convert a Mac user.

I agree 100% with everything you have said, the only reason for me to still keep using IE as my preferred 3rd browser is Microsoft products (Dynamics CRM I am looking at you) still force you to use the monstrosity that is IE. My default browser is Google Chrome and use Firefox for other certain tasks and then IE for the ones at which I am forced. I welcome the day Microsoft finally realises they have lost market share, maybe then they will listen to the end user more often, just like they have done with Windows 7. Not that they have lost a large share in the OS market but it took something drastic for them to realise they needed to listen more.

most savvy pc users do not use ie. many refuse to as it’s a security risk.

recommend firefox with following add ons: ad block pro, no script, a download accelerator, and web search pro

@Alan
If you were that savvy you would realise that IE8 security is on a par with other browsers. If you don’t believe me, check out secunia.com. All browsers have vulnerabilities.

I must admit, whilst I’m not a fan, I’ve not had any issues with IE8. I’ve been using it since probably July and don’t recall any crashes. I prefer Firefox and the way it works but that DOES crash quite a lot. IE8, as you would expect, renders Microsoft stuff better than the other browsers. Outlook Web Access being the main one for me. Also, my MSDN stuff will ONLY work with IE – surprise, surprise. So, whilst I agree it isn’t the best, I would say your experience is sub-par.

@ Chris Brennan

Here’s a massive annoyance we’ve just had on our two new iMacs (well, old-new, as they’re 24 inchers!):

We bought them with the extra AppleCare warranty package – we need to if we want to shunt them over to our new Managed Service when it goes live in March – and one of my guys has just spent a VERY frustrating 20 minutes trying to get the mandatory details in. The details page worked out he was in the UK right enough, but wouldn’t let him add anything to the ‘State’ (yeah, because we have states here…) field – no option in the drop-down list, no ability to type, nothing! So he moved on…

Apple had helpfully auto-filled the phone numbers – but missed off the ‘0′. Couldn’t add it either, until it was worked out that Apple had helpfully omitted the first digit of the area code and added the first two of the number, thereby making the box hit its 6 character limit! So, all the numebrs got changed, all checked to make sure everything was ok, except for the state.

Wasn’t expecting four errors!

At least now he could add the county – manually.

But the numbers were all still invalid, it reckoned. We double-checked – all had the correct 5-digit error code and 6-digit number, but nope, still wrong according to Apple. We tried it with the ‘+44′ instead of the ‘0′, although there wasn’t enough room, tried it without the ‘0′ in case Apple didn;’t want that, but nothing. Zip. Nada.

Eventually, we just removed all the numbers to see what that did and lo and behold, their previous status as ‘Invalid numbers’ was gone!

But Apple don’t appear to like UK numbers for the registration of a UK warranty on a UK product and there’s very little guidance given – the red lettering at the top makes it seem as though the information is mandatory and you cannot proceed without its input, yet you enter correct numbers and it tells you it’s wrong!

After he went through that rigmarole, it asked my guy if he wanted to register any other Apple products onto AppleCare. He said yes, to do the other Mac. The page returned a message saying ‘This product is not suitable for this warranty’! Same iMac type, same warranty type, purchased at the same time, with the same info added!

Very user friendly user-experience all round and I will most definitely recommend iMacs on this basis to all my friends and family. Did I mention I hate them?

Yes, PC OEMs can do similar things, but that’s up to the OEM – and I’ve installed and registered warranties for HP, IBM, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, Asus, Mesh, RM and Samsung computers and I have NEVER come across a more obtuse, unhelpful system.

Yes, possibly the wrong place, btu I needed to vent and the AppleCare registration form is basically a web page, so this kinda fits!

ha ha! one simple typo and you guys are up in arms… I think that appalling was meant to be appealing (did you use a spell-checker, I think that may have done it).

I’m really not sure what the furore is over the browser, if Chris also checks out the mail and the calendar gadgety thing that’s built into windows, and there are other, better, 3rd party options available, it still doesn’t stop him from commenting on it, as its also part of winSe7en, is it not?

I guess Chris is trying to cover as many aspects of using the OS as he can – by using it and seeing the bits that jump out.

Html5 is still a draft much like css3. you can spend hours “hacking” your code so it suits other browsers too.

If you are able to code with standards, and know the ins and outs of the major browsers, you don’t even need hacks for your layout to look good.

To me you are just jumping in the “ie is bad because other ppl say it is” boat.

While i do agree that ie is a security hazard, because its so tied up with the os and updates for it are handled by the update manager for windows. also, unfortunately, updates for it are slower than in other browsers.

Extensions are the selling point for firefox, its heavy memory usage compared to opera, or google chrome is rather large. If opera had good interpretation of tables and firebug, adblock+, etc i would change to it in a second.

Try viewing some css3 in firefox, lulz ensured. zz.