Downloaded the Beta last year, but it soon got put on the shelf.

Certainly on all the sites I use, I had to switch it into the mode that effectively make it run as IE7 in order to maintain compatibility with them, and stop pages being broken.

Now that I have found a great set of add-ons/plug-ins to go with Firefox, I simply can't be bothered wasting time with IE, it's just too primitive and I lose too many functions if I try and use it now.

And I'm not going to turn all evangelist, and try and convert anyone now. Firefox with plug-ins is just too good a secret to share

Actually, the best bit about it for me at the moment is that your PC can crash stone-dead as you are typing, and a properly configured Firefox will simply return to the same place where you were typing when the PC crashed, and you carry on. With IE, you lose anything you hadn't saved, and any text boxes or typing areas will be blank.

Oh dear, I must not be grown-up yet

MS has just dropped an internet ad for IE after customers complained about it, as it features a vomiting woman.

Although I think the idea had more to do with a PR company coming up with something it could claim was "innovative and kewl", so it could justify a huge consultancy fee from MS for not a lot of work, I don't think it was worth anyone's effort to make a complaint, and suspect the complainers had more interest in being anti-MS than complaining about being upset by the pretend vomit. And this would only be seen by internet users, not on TV.

I've clearly not grown-up though, as I thought the idea was good, if let down by poor realisation on screen - implied vomiting that we didn't actually see, and only heard in the background, would have been much more effective as our imaginations ran away with the sounds, rather then the unconvincing spitting out of a mouthful of lentil soup.

The big film-makers learned this long ago for their scenes including violent beatings and torture, sound works way better than a few splashes of tomato sauce.

I personally find IBM's "I'm a PC " adverts much more sick-making than this, and they are on TV!

Here it comes, so if you're going to be upset by it... DON'T WATCH IT!

I don't care for the advert but I have to say I have had no problems with IE8 except for the odd site, old-maps being one of them, that needs to compatability button to restore normal service.