Comments on: Unofficial Vista Blog Tour, Day 2: Does IE7 suck?

By: Coenraad de Beer

Coenraad de Beer — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:00:15 +0000

Stuart, you do have a point there. I am a huge supporter of Firefox, but I also recognise the need of improved online security for the mainstream user and that is what we should be aiming at, whether we are referring to IE or Firefox. It is at the moment more important to have IE5/6 users switch to Firefox for improved security, or they must at least upgrade their browser to IE7 (which is always a better bet than IE5/6 when it comes to security). I must admit that, although Microsoft’s approach to security is still not what it should be, they seemed to do more things right with IE7 than they did with previous versions of IE.

http://www.cybertopcops.com

By: Stuart Mudie

Stuart Mudie — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 19:41:12 +0000

While I disagree that “IE7 sucks” and “Firefox 2.0 sucks” is an unfair comparison, since both queries contain the version number, it wasn’t really the point of my post to say which of the two I prefer (for the record, I still use Firefox as my main browser). Rather, I simply wanted to suggest that we should perhaps recognise the fact that Microsoft did get some things right with its new browser instead of focusing only on the negative.

By: Coenraad de Beer

Coenraad de Beer — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 21:05:16 +0000

Which search engine did you use? Check the big 3 of search and “ie sucks” will in all 3 cases return the most results. Interesting enough the gap between the two searches is the largest on MSN Live Search.

By: ye

ye — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 18:05:51 +0000

That comparison is flawed, since the inclusion of “2.0″ in the firefox query reduces the amount of search results. A better comparison would be to search for:

“ie sucks”
Returns 1,360,000 results

however

“firefox sucks”
Returns 1,410,000 results

Given that IE existed for much longer than Firefox and has been through much more revisions (plus a huge list of users 87% of Internet browsers); we can safely say that a larger proportional of Firefox users (or ex-users) find that Firefox - sucks.

By: If Microsoft had Firefox… at NevilleHobson.com

If Microsoft had Firefox… at NevilleHobson.com — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:36:40 +0000

[...] I bet Stuart would like this [...]

By: Coenraad de Beer

Coenraad de Beer — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:27:24 +0000

Stuart and tedzzz you are right when you say that most of your novice users stick to the browser their OS shipped with, simply because they don’t know better. IE is for the masses, rightfully said, but I have seen total newbies feeling more comfortable with Firefox, many people don’t mind what browser they use, as long as it delivers. I think that even Firefox 2 annoys many people these days because of the constant crashing. But it is sad to say that many people put up with these annoyances from browsers because they don’t even know where to start looking for alternative browsers, let alone the fact of even knowing that alternative browsers exist.

Tedzzz, the user interface changes is the main reason why people will switch to Firefox 2 without any hesitation. I personally think that IE7 would have had a greater impact if they did not fiddle that much with the user interface. Yes a revamped look is always nice, but don’t tumble it upside down. The interface is even confusing for power users, now imagine how hard it must be for novice users to browse the web with IE7. Take for instance the menu bar, why hide something as important as this if you know that the majority of your users are inexperienced and computer illiterate, these users hate buttons and toolbars (they are blind for them), they love menu bars. It is frustrating for me to see how users take several steps to do something they could have done with the use of a button on the toolbar, but this is a cold reality, novice users prefer menus, for one simple reason, menus spells it out for them, buttons with pictures don’t. I have seen so many users on social community sites asking: “What happened to my menu bar in Internet Explorer? Please help!”

http://www.cybertopcops.com

By: tedzzz

tedzzz — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:28:14 +0000

with all the resources and money they have
it looks like it was done on a shoestring

The GUI is out of a 101 design class
did you see the tab configuration option screen?
have you watch people try to figure out how to clear cookies in IE7

did you notice how flexible products like word are for customizing menus
and how inflexible IE is?

the web is now for the masses - IE aint
Firefox, granted is for power users and that is a good place to be, so ….let IE focus on the masses

IE should aim for the masses, who just want something that is transparent to their work on the web.

By: Stuart Mudie

Stuart Mudie — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:49:24 +0000

Coenraad, I agree - partly. I may have written here that Microsoft is on the right track at last, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be changing from Firefox any time soon. But what percentage of “real people” go to the trouble of replacing the browser that ships by default with their operating system? It’s because of users like my Dad that what Microsoft does with its browser is still important.

By: Net

Net — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:34:03 +0000

You should get Maxthon a go. Based on IE technology but with far better performance leaving iE7 far behind. BTW, have you tried the new blog editor in Maxthon (BlogEX-plugin)? Works really great - and fast.

See you at Le Web 3

By: Coenraad de Beer

Coenraad de Beer — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 23:05:29 +0000

Microsoft certainly did a lot of things right this time when the released IE7, but consumer confidence was lost a long time ago with all of the security and rendering issues of IE6. It is going to take more than just a few fancy features to regain the trust of the Internet community.

http://www.cybertopcops.com