Microsoft released the first beta version of Internet Explorer back in first quarter of 2008. I was still using IE 6, and yes that shows how successful IE 7 was. 2008 was certainly a disappointing year for IE. Mozilla stole a lot of IE users when they released Firefox 3. Opera had its share of internet explorer users with their 9.5 release and of course Google’s browser Google Chrome.
I don’t think the picture is going to change much with this new release. Because there is nothing new. IE is still updating, they are not creating anything new and that’s why there is no big fuss about this version of Internet Explorer.
Internet Explorer has now less then 70% of market according to Net Applications. They haven’t done anything to IE 6 for five years and still about 20% is using IE 6. So other browser like Firefox and Opera didn’t have hard time getting IE users switch to their browsers. Firefox crashed the idea of IE being the dominant browser (technically, IE is still dominant). Firefox has now over 20% of market.
What’s next?
Opera 10. I’m really looking forward to this new generation of Opera. As I blogged about it last month, they have a new engine which is faster comparing to other versions. Opera 10 aims to get a lot of IE 6 users.
Google’s Chrome certainly deserves some attention at this point. It has about 0.7% market share which is more than Opera. Even though they have released the first non-beta version of Google Chrome, it’s still missing a lot of common browser features (such as RSS). I’m sure they are going to gather little more attention when they improve the browser.
What’s the problem with Internet Explorer?
Well, there are many. They are still catching up. Maybe that 5 year break was too long. Go ahead and check out the features that will be in IE 8. Most major browsers (like Safari, Firefox) already has those features for long time. So nothing new. I don’t think features like compatibility view is going to grab a lot of attention.
Also, another point I want to talk about is the installation process that you have to go through. This goes same for most of Microsoft’s products. If you install IE, you would have to restart your machine to get the program running. They should also offer whether the user wants to replace his/her current IE installation. Default installation will replace your current version with IE 8. It didn’t make much sense to me since the software is in beta. It just makes it harder to test.
Stumbleupon Addon on IE 8
I was also able to use stumble upon on IE 8. If it’s not just my installation, there is a big problem with the add-on. But I’m certain that Stumbleupon will fix it as soon as a non beta version of IE 8 arrives.
Problem is when you click on stumble button, it will not register for about 2, 3 seconds. At first I thought it was just the software being laggy. But it’s not. There is something wrong.
So what’s going to happen in 2009?
I don’t think IE is going to start getting new users from other browsers at all. They are going to loose more of their users to Firefox and Opera. They will probably release IE 8 in first half of 2009 and they are going to have the same problem as they had with IE 7. They won’t be able to get majority of users update their browsers. Also I don’t think Firefox is going to stay quite with all this happening and I think a lot of people are expecting Firefox to show how good Firefox is to other browsers once again with a new release, especially Google Chrome as sort of a response.
One thing which is good for all internet users is that competition will result with better products. So we all win.
It’s been over a year since Microsoft started testing Internet Explorer’s latest version.