I've had the little Vista "nag box" in my taskbar for ages now, and I'm wondering....should I update IE7 to IE8?

I've run a quick search and can't find any major complainers on the net, but that's normally because everyone is using other browsers instead!

I like using IE as a browser as it means my mrs doesn't get confused between different browsers, plus it's the same as any other PC I might use at work. So please don't begin with "Omg, IE8? Sucks, use Opera/Mozilla/Firefox" etc

OMG, IE sucks use Firefox!

Seriously though, IE8 is supposed to be a huge improvement over IE7 so I'd jump ship if I was you. For a start it's much more standards-compliant, and it's supposed to be more secure too.

From running it on my slow laptop, I can tell you it's so much faster than IE7 or even IE6!

I have Windows XP on a 233mhz Pentium 2/128mb laptop (because its a sort of family lappy and mum+dad like XP), and using 6, I couldn't watch anything on youtube because it was like a frame a second. Ie7 was worse, but now with IE8, I can watch them. They're still a little choppy, but it's better than nothing.

Plus, the InPrivate browsing feature is brilliant. It allows you to browse normally, but as soon as you close that session, it deletes the cookies/history of that session. Perfect for a family laptop.

On the other hand, it's still Interfag Fagsplorer, so it's got more security holes in it than a collinder. I use Opera on my big PC and it's faster than IE8 for loading pages, downloading, but can look fussy.

I think IE8 is fine and way better than IE7. I find Firefox to be as bloated as IE anyway now. I do like Google Chrome though.

Installed.....

Seems like the old one, except just as I got used to the new Favourites button, they went and changed it back like IE6 again *shakefist*

It is faster, more standards compliant and generally a better browser.

The only problem is poorly written websites, which just see "IE" and don't check for a version number and start outputting hacks for IE 6, which won't work on IE 8 and could cause the page to render odd - although IE8 does include a quirks mode to allow you to render the page in a non-compliant way, which should work with poorly coded sites.

IE8 is a pain in the backside.

After using it for a few hours it stops working and I cannot access any websites. I never had this problem with IE7 but cannot go back so now am forced to use Firefox or Chrome. IE8 does not support applications that use Java applets so Yahoo spades tables won't work properly.

Yes you can - go to Add/Remove programs and look for Windows Internet Explorer 8 and remove it. All IE7 settings are saved when you upgrade to 8.

I had IE8 for a few days and ended-up rolling back to IE7 as it would work fine on the first few websites then, for no obvious reason, just grind to a halt and chug along like an asthmatic tortoise.

Had enough of that so off it came.

Nice idea but IE7 was removed automatically when I upgraded to IE8. There is no way to download IE7 now as Microsoft don't allow it. Things could be worse, I could be using Vista but was warned about 18 months ago not to use that by a Microsoft trained IT expert.

Uninstalling IE8 should leave the machine with IE7 installed.

Personally, I haven't had any problems with IE8 so far.

Not if you're using XP it isn't - IE8 is only like a series of patches for IE7. Once they're removed, you're back to IE7.

There is an issue with IE8 and Spybot S&D

I had to uninstall SPybot before IE8 would work properly

Running spybot and IE8 at work, no problems so far. What issues were you having?

I read that Spybot affects performance, it causes delays in opening tabs for one.