IE8 - duff update released

[StevenWilliams]

Originally Posted by Grey Ghost

No. Software and systems development formerly for the navy and latterly for ESA. For obvious reasons (Official secrets act) I have little knowledge of his actual role.

I unfortunately have to agree with your point on large corporate networks using MS products. However, for the small business network and home users my advice still stands. With which you appear to agree to a certain extent.

Personally I am more in tune with Apple systems in the higher education environment through Mac-supporters, one of the JISCMAIL lists. It is a closed list but with an introduction you may be able to gain access Although I do not work in the field, the level of information and support is immense, cross platform. My expertise is in Mac business networks up to 50 machines and home networks, including home users with just the one.

When I worked on military projects there was only a choice of Mosaic. I also remember the wise use of Finger and Gopher.. Not at the same time I assure you
That was some time ago and I'm all to familiar with what I can tell people and what I cannot

I seriously doubt that military systems would use anything else but IE unless in a development environment. However I do remember seeing Flight simulator installed on a ships computers but that’s another story. Luckily they did have redundant systems.

The main problem with alternative browsers for corporate environments is locking them down so users cannot change settings. This is very important if you want to keep an environment secure.
You have to work out and create rules for each setting and install them locally to each PC. Whereas with IE you create a central rule and it propagates out much easier. With the mess that chrome and FF do to a users profile it's much harder to manage.

We at first allowed users to use Firefox. then a few users started complaining that it was waking longer and longer to logon. We found that while we had rules stating that all internet history would be removed at logoff this does not work in firefox when you have roaming profiles. It still does not work to this date and is a recognised issue thats been there for a few years. It seems that corporate functionality is not high on the priority list for Mosaic.

Don't get me wrong. On my home machines I have Chrome and FF installed and normally use Chrome for this site as it's far faster.
For anywhere where I have to manage multiple PC's over a long period I always tell users to use IE as the maintenance is far higher with Chrome and FF. If a home or small business user with a limited number of PC's and some technical knowhow or onsite support then Chrome and FF are fine but I'd always give them training in how to maintain it.

Most consumers just point and click and give little credence to maintenance. These are the same users who then complain that things get slower over time or that the system is unreliable. IE is far easier to automatically maintain and much better for the novice but it does have it's drawbacks.
People target IE as it's the most popular. As the popularoty of other browsers increases they will get targetted to. This is now starting to happen to Firefox. This does not make IE is less secure than other browsers. However no matter what browser you use you should always use a trusted antivirus, anti spam and firewall software solution.

On a separate subject (Not that we’ve deviated from the original subject).
That amazes me is how many people still use old browsers.. IE6 is still used for around 15% of all web browsing.. amazinng considering how long ago support stopped on it.

I think I have gone slightly off topic with this post.. so..

Back on track. I’ve remoted into a number of PC's at work and tried this site. All the PC's are windows 7 with IE8 and the fixpack installed. I cannot say I've seen any issues with this site.

[GreyGhost]

Interesting post Steven. Thanks for sharing. An Applescript serves to keep Safari under control in Mac environment, this does entail a bit of setup on a per machine basis in it's simplest deployment but as it's generally a very limited number is not a major issue. As you say for the home user it's not something to address. An occasional cache and history clearance suffices.
I've tested this forum with all the developer user agents easily available in Safari and have also found no problems either apart from IE6 but that may not be apparent on a dedicated Windows machine. See attached.

[Simon W]

Originally Posted by Simon W

Some folk have reported the first auto-install of 980182 messed up IE8 - just like mine did. They uninstalled & tried again a day or two later and it went in with no problems. Maybe MS have altered it in the interim - who knows?

For info: I just tried installing KB980182 again and it's working this time - no IE8 errors. I reckon the first release was a duffer and MS replaced it at some point.

[Simon W]

Ignore post 33. IE8 went pear-shaped again.

Did a System Restore to pre KB980182 (5th April) and IE8 back to normal.