Could Anything Make You Use IE9? | Hacker News Reader

Could Anything Make You Use IE9?

briancrescimanno.com

9 pointsbcrescimanno30 comments

This seems silly. If the browser was better, I'd use it. And I'd be very happy that the future of the web looked so bright.

That said, I don't think it's likely that IE9 will even catch up to today's Chrome, let alone pass it.

Probably right, the long Microsoft release cycles may work for OS's and Office but makes it very hard from them to stay at the cusp of browser technology with the fast moving constantly releasing competition.

Agreed. Neglecting issues of open vs. closed source (for whom that matters), the question boils down to "would you refuse to use an arbitrary program because it's named IE". Of course not.

My gut level reaction says "sure, I'd use it," but the more I think about it, the more that I remember the whole reason we're in this position is that when Microsoft got ahead, they let the tech lag. If both IE9 and IE10 were both better, then I'd probably give it a shot.

I'd be shocked if this were to actually happen.

I guess if they ported it over to Linux? Otherwise I physically cant :(

Yup, won't run on my machine either. Though to be honest, I wouldn't run it even if it would.

Two parts to this really - will it be better and would you use it if it was? By the look of the current alpha/beta stuff, it's just barely competitive now, on very selective benchmarks. When it comes out it will be competing with Chrome 6 and Firefox 4, probably. It'll be good by Microsoft's previous browser's standards, but not good compared to the competition, I imagine. Will I use it, if it is competitive? Would I use it if it was actually the best browser available? As a Linux user, unlikely. As a web developer, yes, but only in a VM; I hope it runs on a nice lightweight Windows XP VM, although I doubt it will, somehow.

Could anything lead me to not install Chrome on my parent’s computers but instead leave IE the default?

IE8 does that already. It’s good enough. Not worth going through the trouble of getting an alternative for my parents.

But, the question wasn't "would you want your mom to use it." It was "would you use it?" I definitely understand the desire to keep things simple on a system you have to support but don't get to use.

I know, I can read :)

I just wanted to suggest that there are ways for IE to “succeed” that have nothing to do with convincing the Hacker News demographic of its superiority.

I stick with browsers (software in general) until I have a bad experience which prompts me to explore other options. I don't recall what version of IE that was for me (probably 5?) for FireFox it was the dreadful early 2.x releases. Safari hasn't pissed me off yet so I'll probably stick with it. I've been using Chrome, in conjunction with Safari, for the silly reason that I like having two logical groups of web pages under different Dock icons.

If it worked on the Mac and on Linux, and it was better than Firefox, sure. I adopted Chrome on those platforms because it's better than the alternatives.

I wouldn't want to miss all those Firefox extensions. Especially AdblockPlus and EasyPrivacy. As far as I know Chrome only blocks displaying of ads but not the download. I.e. it cannot support EasyPrivacy at the moment.

No. I run Linux, you insensitive clod! ;)

I am still pumped for better standards support, though. Makes everybody's life better. Now if we can only get them to abandon the rendering mode insanity: http://ieblog.members.winisp.net/images/MarcSil_IE8_Document...

I find this silly and hyperbolic. I will use IE 9 because a significant portion of people using web sites I design will use it. I doubt it'll replace Chrome as my preferred browser, but it's not going to hurt me to use.

Problem is for a lot of power users and developers, the people that will be the hardest to convert to using IE, the existing addons for firefox and now chrome would mean that they probably wouldn't bother.

If they get on board with HTML5 (including goodies like canvas and WebSockets), we'll talk. In the meantime, I'll stick with future-facing browsers, as a user and as a dev.

Only a forced upgrade from Windows Update or the next version of Windows that I have to get would make me have IE9 installed. I still wouldn't use it though.

As a developer, I'd still be forced to use it for QA. :(

How could I speculate about using a browser no one outside of Redmond knows very little about just yet?

I would do it for a Klondike bar.

WebKit and Mac support.

EDIT: Wait, what? Why was my personal opinion voted down?

No, because it won't run on Linux.

Answer: Microsoft.

Any of the following:

a) be superior to chrome and firefox

b) be the only browser I could run

c) Drugged, hypnotized, bribed, etc

P.S. Microsoft, Chrome is your target now. Not Firefox.

And get rid of the flashiness, make it plain... PLEASE

++ re: plain. I still think ie5 was the greatest browser Microsoft made, because it was the basic browser that, although it had no bells or whistles, worked on almost EVERY page. If I couldn't see something in Opera or, later, Firefox, I just threw it at ie5 and it worked.

Funny story for you; I have found pages that do not render properly in IE6 that render fine in IE5.5.

I wish I could explain it but..

Exactly. Standard IE is no longer the throw-anything-at-it (and pretty fast as well) browser, unfortunately.

1) Would need to run on a Mac

2) Would need to out-perform Chrome, Safari, and Firefox in that order.

3) Would need to have 100% ECMAScript 5 support, 100% CSS3 support, and 100% html5 support.

Yeah, these are pretty high standards. I hold my browsers to a higher standard than my women.

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