IE11 is really about as bad as it gets

[Phil Thien]

Microsoft has set a new standard for delivering worthless carp with IE11.

That is all.

[Mike Henderson]

I have no dog in that fight - I use Chrome - but what's the problem with IE 11? Just interested.

Mike

[Phil Thien]

I have no dog in that fight - I use Chrome - but what's the problem with IE 11? Just interested.

Mike

I use 'em all, as I have products w/ embedded httpd that can be somewhat picky.

So in terms of IE11, I get pretty frequent "Internet Explorer has stopped responding" messages visiting sites that just the day before worked flawlessly with IE10. Quite a few formatting issues, too.

Even here on SMC I have problems with composing a message. I can select "compatibility view" to fix the slow text entry, but then zooming in on a photo in another message by clicking on it seems to break (have to try opening it a few times).

[Larry Frank]

Sometime ago, I had enough with IE and have been using chrome ever since with no problems.

[Chris Kennedy]

Internet Explorer -- the browser you use to download another browser.

Chris

[Don Morris]

Chrome seems to be the way to go. Gave up on IE years ago.

[glenn bradley]

IE is a requirement for several tools at work. A recent update caused all sorts of buggery. I have three words that may help . . . Compatibility View Settings.

[Curt Harms]

Microsoft has set a new standard for delivering worthless carp with IE11.

That is all.

Worse than I.E. 6?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I wish I had a way to get back to IE-10! IE-11 is the pits!

[Phil Thien]

IE is a requirement for several tools at work. A recent update caused all sorts of buggery. I have three words that may help . . . Compatibility View Settings.

Yeah but, that doesn't fix all the bugs.

It is unfathomable to me that they would build a browser and more or less admit that it isn't standard by adding compatibility view options, which really only make it more compatible (not completely) with previous versions of their own browser, but nobody else's.

[Phil Thien]

I wish I had a way to get back to IE-10! IE-11 is the pits!

You can typically uninstall 11 under Control Panel/Programs.

I haven't done it yet, but I probably will.

I was sort of expecting a flurry of patches to fix some of the issues I'm seeing.

[Brian Elfert]

Microsoft made a major change with IE 11 that is causing issues with some websites. IE 11 no longer identifies itself as MSIE to websites. Some websites depend on seeing the MSIE string to work properly with IE. Microsoft't own Outlook Web Access included with Exchange doesn't even work right with IE 11! (There is a patch for Exchange.)

The worst thing about IE 11 for me is the stupid security settings. Microsoft is trying to make IE more secure, but it makes old websites break. If one changes the security settings then IE nags you to change security back to default every time you go to a website that needs the security changes.

[Myk Rian]

I don't trust Google all that much, so I use Firefox.
I always delete the IE icon on my desktop.

[Curt Harms]

I don't trust Google all that much, so I use Firefox.
I always delete the IE icon on my desktop.

Yup, although Firefox can have 'issues' with some web sites that may have proprietary/sloppy/insecure components. Oftentimes restarting with add-ons disabled fixes the issue, occasionally it doesn't. I keep a copy of Chromium for such occasions. If neither one works, I figure there's nothing there I really need.

[Brian Elfert]

I use Firefox mostly, but I use IE 11 for some things. I've really seen no issues yet other than the Exchange OWA thing and some weird stuff at work with some ancient web stuff.

Browser compatibility is an ongoing battle. At work I deal with web stuff that employees use at both home and work. Work PCs are fairly standard so everything works fine at work. The problem is home PCs owned by employees. Some employees upgrade to the latest browser and/or OS when it comes out and then complain when the stuff doesn't work, but others have ancient PCs with really old browsers and complain when things stop working. We finally just told everyone they had to have Windows XP or higher and IE8 or higher on home PCs for things to work. So far, everything still works with IE8 and also still works with IE 11.

[John Coloccia]

Just the interface on IE is awful. It took me a good amount of time to figure out what the heck was going on at the top of IE window, where I actually type in the addresses, etc. In fact, their entire office suite is bordering on unusable. What happened to the simple, clean interface? It's just a complete mess now and I can't tell what's going to do something vs what's going to pull up a menu vs what does nothing. We're dumping Outlook on my wife's new computer and replacing it with a $10 program called Postbox. I've been using it for years and it's so much better.

I truly do not understand what interface designers are doing these days. The Android interface is generally pretty awful too. Very flat, no indication at all what is clickable, what's draggable, etc. It's like we've completely forgotten everything there is to forget about designing a usable interface.

[Phil Thien]

What happened to the simple, clean interface? ... I truly do not understand what interface designers are doing these days.

What he ^^^ just said.

They (MS) are going in the wrong direction.

[Matt Meiser]

iOS7 has that same flat look. Its "in" right now. When I installed Office 365 I thought I accidentally chose a vision-impaired theme or something.

[David Weaver]

Call me crazy, but I think things are being designed to maximize advertising revenue and data collection. User pleasure and contentment probably are lower on the scale than those things now.

I may be tinfoil hatting it, but I'd assume that google and microsoft probably feel that design elements in their browsers are worth millions of dollars per decision, and maybe some more than that.

[Greg Peterson]

I use IE only when necessary. The IE interface has too much chrome. I find it interesting that even though MS has their tablet they don't seem understand the value of screen real estate.

I tried a trial version of Office a few years ago and was shocked and appalled at the default litter taking up screen space. I went back to Office 97. The interface is clean, simple and if I need a function I can easily find it. I've played around with newer versions of Excel since the last trial fiasco and it seems the interface was created by a team that was trying to justify their jobs by changing something that wasn't broken.

Who asked for these interface changes?

[John Coloccia]

It's a real joy to use a program that has a good user interface. Rhino CAD program is like that. Very clean and straightforward. There are a few others that come to mind too. Everyone else just seems to be absolutely lost in the weeds.

[Kev Williams]

Haven't used anything but firefox for years. Tried Chrome a couple of times, it acted like WinME, sometimes work, most times not. My Chevron bill and my Samsung security cam system require IE, and they're the ONLY things I use it for.

To go sideways a bit- the wife bought me a new hot-rod HP computer for xmas, with Windows 8. I have 13 engraving and laser machines that require a computer to run them. 10 of them are NOT USB connectable, but that doesn't matter anyway. All the machines are connected and driven from various other computers on my network, and I've been able to run them all from any computer via simple printer sharing. But I can't get a single machine driver to load in Win8, and until I can, this computer is basically worthless to me. Give me XP Pro any day, and I'm going to install it on my new computer if there's any way possible.

I wish Microsoft would quit fixing things that aren't broke!

[Brian Elfert]

A large part of my job is administering Windows servers. I was mentioning to a co-worker yesterday that all Microsoft server developers should be required to administer the product for at least a year before they are allowed to write any code. Some of the stuff in the Windows Server GUI is just plain stupid and defies common sense.

[Chuck Wintle]

I use Firefox and very seldom use IE, any version, because, as most have said it does not work well. MS have the same attitude Henry Ford once had, any color as long as its black.

[Jim Rimmer]

I wish I had a way to get back to IE-10! IE-11 is the pits!

A friend of mine who used to be an IT guy called me and told me to uninstall it but not to use the Control Panel. Go to All Programs and find IE11 and there is an uninstall program there. Use that.

[Rich Engelhardt]

A thousand thanks to all in this thread....

I just changed my IE settings so it doesn't do an automatic upgrade to IE11...

[Jim Matthews]

Internet Explorer -- the browser you use to download another browser.Chris

That's funny, right there - I don't care who you are.
I suppose every orphan code has a purpose.

Even if that purpose is to render itself redundant.

[Anthony Diodati]

Internet Explorer -- the browser you use to download another browser.

Chris

LOL
Thats funny.
I use FF
did not like the lay out of chrome.

[Matt Meiser]

It took me about a day to get used to Chrome. Now I have it on all PCs I use, my iPad, and my iPhone. Love the history and bookmark sync between devices. Yeah Google is "tracking" me. Everyone was doing it before too.

[Anthony Diodati]

maybe I'll try it again, I still have it installed.
I like My Menu bar and navigation bar in FF
Plus the customize add on, allows a Pay Pal link, and a e bay icon link, Read mail (windows live) and others,

[Curt Harms]

It took me about a day to get used to Chrome. Now I have it on all PCs I use, my iPad, and my iPhone. Love the history and bookmark sync between devices. Yeah Google is "tracking" me. Everyone was doing it before too.

Sync is downright handy. Firefox has it as well and can sync history, passwords, bookmarks, cookies etc. or not as you wish. I do quite a bit of installing linux distros to play with. A couple minutes and the browser on my new install is exactly like the browser on every other. I don't trust it with passwords though I may be overly paranoid.

[Brian Ashton]

Microsoft has set a new standard for delivering worthless carp with IE11.

That is all.


Ah stop yer complaining if it weren't for windows the US unemployment rate would be 2% higher. Just think about the number of IT people that would be jobless if MS produced a product that was at a reasonable level of quality. More people around the world are employed holding office workers hands and guiding them through the MS maze and frantically trying to finding work arounds for MS' software than are probably employed in the entire US. Fixing MS is an economy unto itself. You think I'm joking don't you… I'm not. Think about how much money, world wide, companies and people are spending on their MS products to keep them running, up to date and secure; and the number of people in IT employed at various levels of help desks… World wide it would be staggering. And I'm not talking about software developers and the likes that are simply trying to keep up with MS with their own applications.


OK now here's the joke… And we keep paying MS for it.

OK mac and penguin users, calm down this is not the time to start chirping in… Can't you see the poor man needs help not I told you so...

[Chuck Wintle]

Ah stop yer complaining if it weren't for windows the US unemployment rate would be 2% higher. Just think about the number of IT people that would be jobless if MS produced a product that was at a reasonable level of quality. More people around the world are employed holding office workers hands and guiding them through the MS maze and frantically trying to finding work arounds for MS' software than are probably employed in the entire US. Fixing MS is an economy unto itself. You think I'm joking don't you… I'm not. Think about how much money, world wide, companies and people are spending on their MS products to keep them running, up to date and secure; and the number of people in IT employed at various levels of help desks… World wide it would be staggering. And I'm not talking about software developers and the likes that are simply trying to keep up with MS with their own applications.


OK now here's the joke… And we keep paying MS for it.

OK mac and penguin users, calm down this is not the time to start chirping in… Can't you see the poor man needs help not I told you so...
i heard that most MS programmers are do not reside in the US. A lot are in India ans ist in a small cubicle writing code for nest to nothing. The US economy still suffers.

[Phil Thien]

i heard that most MS programmers are do not reside in the US. A lot are in India ans ist in a small cubicle writing code for nest to nothing. The US economy still suffers.

That is incorrect.

[Chuck Wintle]

That is incorrect.

Phil,
I disagree. I did read somewhere that a lot of offshore programmers work for MS and do this because they are paid only pennies what is earned in the US.

[Brian Elfert]

Microsoft employs 101,000 people with 60,000 in the USA. The majority of those employees (49,000) work in sales and marketing while 43,000 work in engineering. Microsoft has offices in 113 countries. Microsoft is a worldwide business so it makes sense that they have lots of employees overseas. Microsoft certainly employs overseas developers, but I've heard that the ones in India at least make $12 to $15 an hour.

I'm less concerned about a worldwide company like Microsoft employing overseas developers than I am with a company like Target employing overseas developers. Target does zero business outside of North America so they have no legitimate reason to hire Indian developers other than saving money.

[Phil Thien]

Phil,
I disagree. I did read somewhere that a lot of offshore programmers work for MS and do this because they are paid only pennies what is earned in the US.

Well you said most MS programmers do not reside in the US, and that I know to be untrue. In fact, when it comes to core products (operating systems, office suites, application servers) I imagine very close to all that development occurs in the U.S.

Hopefully it is obvious why (think national security).

[Duane Meadows]

Hmm, if this thread were about a woodworking company, would probably been closed by now! Guess it's ok to bash Microsoft?

[Phil Thien]

Hmm, if this thread were about a woodworking company, would probably been closed by now! Guess it's ok to bash Microsoft?

Well if Microsoft ran Grizzly we'd have to make monthly subscription payments until the end of time for our jointers, none of which would provide a straight edge but instead have a display screen that simply said "that didn't work, try it again" until the piece of wood was too small to use.

For the record, I think enforcing a policy of no rants when it comes to woodworking tool vendors makes sense as SMC is sort of the 500 # gorilla when it comes to woodworking forums and anything written here could be quite influential (/detrimental) to any vendor of woodworking wares (many of which aren't here to defend themselves).

But nothing we say here is going to make a dent in Microsoft.

[John Coloccia]

Well if Microsoft ran Grizzly we'd have to make monthly subscription payments until the end of time for our jointers, none of which would provide a straight edge but instead have a display screen that simply said "that didn't work, try it again" until the piece of wood was too small to use.

For the record, I think enforcing a policy of no rants when it comes to woodworking tool vendors makes sense as SMC is sort of the 500 # gorilla when it comes to woodworking forums and anything written here could be quite influential (/detrimental) to any vendor of woodworking wares (many of which aren't here to defend themselves).

But nothing we say here is going to make a dent in Microsoft.

Considering that a good many of us have had to call Microsoft in an effort to get them fix what is broken and stop breaking what we like and works, I believe we've probably collectively complied with the spirit, if not the letter, of the rant rule :)

[Neal Clayton]

Sync is downright handy. Firefox has it as well and can sync history, passwords, bookmarks, cookies etc. or not as you wish. I do quite a bit of installing linux distros to play with. A couple minutes and the browser on my new install is exactly like the browser on every other. I don't trust it with passwords though I may be overly paranoid.

Have you tried a FreeBSD desktop lately? There's a port called 'desktop-installer' in sysutils that will automatically install and configure your desktop of choice for you. It's pretty spiffy. But for KDE's bugs, it's almost as usable out of the box as OSX is (but I still use OSX on my desktop, admittedly, I only have access to windows on my gf's laptop).

[Tom Stenzel]

This is a bad time to ask me about Microsoft.

Last Thursday my wife told me her Acer laptop was acting up. I checked the updater, it said that there were a bunch of updates needed, over a gig of data to download. It spent most of Saturday updating itself.

Then it didn't work at all.

Yesterday morning I had to start over with the Windows 7 install disk. Then get the updates, 176 of them. Then after that update, the updater was happy. I had it check, it then found 14 more. Then it was happy until I had it check again, found 76 more updates.

This was a couple gigs of data. With the Uverse 1.5 mbs service I have it tied up my internet connection for a big chunk of the day. But even if the downloads were instantaneous the computer spent at least 6 hours just processing the updates.

I finally quit at midnight. And it was still bugging me that there were MORE IMPORTANT UPDATES!

One of these important updates was IE11. I declined that fix!

-Tom Stenzel

[paul cottingham]

I've said it before. Use IE to download Firefox. Or better yet, to download some version of *nix, and install it. Voila, all your IE problems are fixed decisively.

[Robert Delhommer Sr]

I quit using IE back around ver.5, I am a Forefox guy now and for the last several years. ;)

[Curt Harms]

Have you tried a FreeBSD desktop lately? There's a port called 'desktop-installer' in sysutils that will automatically install and configure your desktop of choice for you. It's pretty spiffy. But for KDE's bugs, it's almost as usable out of the box as OSX is (but I still use OSX on my desktop, admittedly, I only have access to windows on my gf's laptop).

I haven't messed with any BSD as of yet. I always kinda thought it was Arch or Gentoo level skill required to use it though BSDs seem the highly regarded for security & stability.

[Curt Harms]

I've said it before. Use IE to download Firefox. Or better yet, to download some version of *nix, and install it. Voila, all your IE problems are fixed decisively.

Yup, use I.E. to download Unetbootin for Windows from Sourceforge and a Linux Mint .iso from their web site. Use Unetbootin to create a Linux Mint Live USB, boot from the USB and experience " I didn't know you could do that without spending $$" moments. The live USB can be used for many things without disturbing Windows at all. IMO Mint is one of the best "it just works" distros out there right now and the Cinnamon desktop should seem pretty familiar for Windows XP users. Browse the web, watch streaming videos, the only cost is time.

[paul cottingham]

I haven't messed with any BSD as of yet. I always kinda thought it was Arch or Gentoo level skill required to use it though BSDs seem the highly regarded for security & stability.
We had a FreeBSD web server running open on the Internet for 6 years, never hacked, no downtime. Very secure, very stable. I have never put KDE or Gnome on BSD, tho, only ever ran it command line. Really like it for servers.