How is IE 5.5?

[Paco21]

Does anyone recommend IE 5.5 yet. Is it stable and is there any difference in how and how fast it renders pages compared to 5?

 

[sov05]

Well the MASS AMOUNT of differences are very hard to list, since there are so many.


It's like the difference between Win 3.11 and Windows 95.

Microsoft's improvements are so great, I think they should charge $20 fee for downloading it, that is how fundamentantly different and better it is.
</sarcasm>

Really nothing great or bad to say.
If you got cable, wth, dl it.
If not, not a big loss

 

[piku]

It seems slightly, slightly faster with pages. But its probably just me thinking its faster.

Either way its faster for me!

 

[CayJon]

x

 

[KB]

I haven't seen any difference in 5.5. I say don't bother.

 

[LXi]

It sucks, I've heard way too many problems regarding IE5.5, stick to 5.01, dont waste your time and energy.

 

[dawks]

I dont like it. Theres a little bug where the IE Globe stops spinning, and it says 'Done', but the page isnt showing yet, you sit and wait two seconds, then its there.

Nothing big, but a pain for sure. Few other bugs, nothing really.

Like sov05 said, if you have high speed, go ahead, If not, your not missing a thing.

 

[WoundedWallet]

I don't know what you guys are talking about.

I've heard there is a group of people really happy with IE 5.5

It has some great new features and you can read it here:
http://216.200.247.132/news/0-1005-200-2260692.html?tag=st.ne.1430735..ni

Trust me...

 

[SilentBoB]

I am using it and I see no speed difference from 5.0, which is what I have upgraded from. The only thing different is that Java applets now work and they didn't before so I am now happy.

 

[Mday]

IE 5.0 is the best release.

 

[HannibalX]

Man 4.1 was the best, it's been crap since then. Pages load slower and slower now - I just got done with the install and AnandTech forums load like I'm on a dial up connection, Blech!

 

[LXi]

Trinitron: Just what the hell are you talking about? 4.x totally sucked, it was an unstable and a slow POS. 5.0 is what everything 4.x should've been, 5.01 is the still the best IE release up to date, it's fast, it loads forward and backward pages instantly, unlike the 4.0 crap which need to access internet.

 

[HannibalX]

No way in hell man, 4.1 was the best. 4.1 fixed all of 4.0's crashing issues AS WELL AS including CORE SHELL UPDATES for Windows 95. It was the best man! The best!

Now after 4.5 and now up to 5.5 what you have is a bloated install, which sucks up too much ram, and loads pages slow as hell. I have been running 5.5 for about a total of 25 mins now and page loading is horrable!

 

[LXi]

Trinitron: Hell no! All 4.x are crap, especially 4.0 and 4.1, it fixed no sh!t. Constantly crashes, not only does it perform illegal operations, it also crashes Explorer and Kernal32.dll! 4.x is a POS, it's a shame MS made such crap, ask anyone, I bet 99% of the people will tell you 5.x is so much better. Page loading slow? Yea maybe its just your internet connection or your computer. 5.x has always been faster than 4.0. What people do a lot on a browser is back and forward, 5.0 loads the back/forward pages directly from temporary folder, saving A LOT of time off of accessing it from the net again(which is what 4.x sh!t does). 5.5 is just problematic, 5.01 works like a charm.

 

[HannibalX]

Hey man, I dunno why yours 4.1 crashed but mine was rock solid! And YES there were updates and fixes in 4.1.

 

[LXi]

Either, 4.x is history now, I dont think we can go back to it after installing 5.x. So lets forget it. How bad is 5.5 anyway?

 

[apoppin]

I liked it since the beta came out months ago. It is more stable for me than 5.01 and maybe a little faster.

 

[HannibalX]

Sure np mate - my only complaint with 5.5 is slow page loading - startup is much quicker though.

Cheers

 

[Charles]

When I open link in new window (by clicking shift and mouse left or right click the link and choose open link in new window) The window opened doesn't show all the buttons on the toolbar I customized. I don't know if anyone had this problem.

 

[lupin]

5.0 still feels better.

I don't like the idea of not having the hourglass animation on when loading a page. It makes the computer look like not doing anything, or crashing, or working really slow.

That's the main thing that I notice.

Second,
Rendering the pages (specially the Forum's pages) is slower. I can tell with bare eyes.

Try running ZDnet's i-Bench:
http://i-bench.zdnet.com/ibench/testlist/run.html

I got slower result with 5.5

 

[Xzaver]

-=-

 

[Paco21]

Some of you say 5.5 is slightly faster, others of you complain about its slow page loading. Which is it? Also not having the hourglass sounds sucky. Is that a bug? What about that problem that DaZ is referring to. Is that really a bug that is going to be fixed or is that just an inherent defect (like the lame scrolling with intellimouse in IE 4&amp;5). I really like IE5 and Im worried that 5.5 might cause problems if i uninstall it. The new features sound appealing though.

 

[Valnir]

Well for me on my Win2k box 5.5 seems a tad faster. But really it's the server you are hitting that determines the time it takes to load, unless the site you go to has a Browser checking Javascript, then 5.5 might be slower since it's doubtful that the script has been changed to include 5.5 yet.

As for differences it's mainly on the Developer side where you will see them.

 

[bulldawg]

Working fine for me. But, there`s not a lot of difference from 5.01.

 

[Praetor]

I've got the same problem DaZ is experiencing. Example? The screen will load the top part of this page, with the AnandTech Forums logo, and the top menu bar (y'know, the one with customize, profile, et al).

Then the IE Globe will stop and then it sort of just sits there. A few seconds later, the rest of the page suddenly reappears. Real annoying on a dial-up.

Another thing, when there's java on your immediate screen, things tend to slow down. Like the top logo, when that's showing, and I want to scroll, it takes an extra milli-second or two-hundred to scroll down. As soon as it disappears, scroll speed is normal. I don't have this problem at all with pages that don't use such obvious Java. I'll have to try out BetaBites and see if having their menu slows things down.

Most of the improvements were at the developer's level. New support for tags, and that sort of thing. The part I like about IE5.5 is the print preview. But I'm not interested in sacrificing speed for a feature that I may or not may use. I'm going to downgrade to IE5.01.


(Oh... and IE3 was the best. )