IE 8 issues – What you can do

A few of my clients have recently had issues with web sites no longer loading for them.  They recently also upgraded to Windows 7 and are using Internet Explorer 8.

Enter in the new issues with the Internet Explorer browser.

The new beta versions of IE 8 were originally heralded as a “more standards compliant” web browser.  However, even as it was released, over 2400 popular sites were incompatible with the new browser – including Google.com and even Microsoft.com!

As a web designer, new versions of IE seem to always spell trouble.  So many of us web designers and webmasters can tell a mountain’s worth of horror stories on IE’s rampant incompatibility with established web standards over the years (and the extra time it costs OUR CLIENTS for us to design workarounds for IE).

So here are my tips for working around the new IE 8 issues:

• CHANGE YOUR WEB BROWSER!  There are now more browsers to choose from that are made for Mac, Windows, and even Unix/Linux.  Some of my suggestions are Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Google Chrome.
• If you are a Windows 7 and IE 8 user, change your settings to force Compatibility:In order to enable and turn on Compatibility View mode for all web pages and websites, click on Tools menu, and select Compatibility View Settings. In the “Compatibility View Settings” dialog, tick the check box for Display all websites in Compatibility View option. Click on Close button when done.
  
• If you insist on IE8 compatibility with your own web site, ask your web master to apply this meta tag in your web site’s header:<meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=EmulateIE7″ />

I will be adding that meta tag to sites a lot I’m guessing!

Also, if you need to keep IE 8 as your default browser, Call That Girl! Computer Repair has posted a video on how to reconfigure IE8 to address this issue and others.