IE8 couldn't come soon enough!

I just discovered that Internet Explorer 8 was released last month. I'm almost afraid to try it, but judging by IE7, it couldn't come quickly enough.

Good ol' IE7. I use IE7 and Firefox simultaneously, because both have a tendency to log me out of some sites I use. As long as I have both browsers, I can easily access most of my sites.

But let me tell you something about Exploder. I'd think IE7 was an improvement over IE6, but for that little problem with crashing all the time. Not like IE6 didn't crash a lot too, but at least with IE6 there was a remote chance that all your important tabs might not be closed. With IE7, forget it.

And when IE7 crashes, bring a book. Better yet, hope that you live right next door to the library. When it crashes, count on it taking a good while to close.

These crashes often lock up all your other windows too. So you find yourself frantically moving your mouse and pounding your mouse button with no results - until 30 seconds later when you get that telltale series of beeps as the cursor flies aimlessly about the screen.

Sometimes you're not even that lucky. Exploder will crash, so you'll click on one of your other windows, only to see a blank white space where your document is supposed to be. Fifteen minutes later, the hard drive is still whirring as Exploder is still in the process of closing. Anxious attempts to open Windows Task Manager or any of your other windows are unsuccessful.

So you have no choice but to press the button and do an improper restart.

Will IE8 see an improvement? One can only hope so, but any American who has lived in the past 25 years isn't used to things improving. (There's a reason that observers called it the conservative era.)