XP Users: Alternatives to Internet Explorer 8

For example, when digital video came out in the 1990’s, you needed a lot of special hardware, software, and patience to watch a tiny video clip. The quality was often grainy, sound was out of sync, and there were a lot of adjustments the users had to do to make the video viewable. Today, we often watch several videos every day on a computers, and they’re plastered everywhere.  You don’t have to download anything or own any special equipment — you just click “Play” and the video starts.

Behind that simple play button is a lot of advanced technology. File compression, video encoding, bit-rate streaming, automatic resolution settings, and a bunch of other technical mumbo-jumbo are all in play behind the scenes to bring you this video. This technology took years to develop and continues to improve. However, any improvements need to have the proper tool to implement them. Older tools aren’t going to work, so it’s important to keep up to date.

This is situation with web browsers. Older browsers can not understand the new technology being used on websites these days, resulting in broken features, poor performance, or in some cases the website not working at all. Internet Explorer is a particular problem because 1) it’s integrated into Windows, making it widely used, and 2) Microsoft can choose to stop updating older versions of Windows, leaving users stranded.

This brings us to the Windows XP/IE8 problem. Internet Explorer 8 is the last version available for Windows XP (Microsoft is set to cut off support for Windows XP completely April 2014 ). It’s still widely used, and those people are either going to need an upgrade path or will need to move to a more modern version of Windows — most likely in the form of a new computer. Using IE8 on the Internet in the coming year is going to become more and more frustrating as new standards and technology are adapted.

OK, so the problem in a nutshell is Windows XP is still working fine for many people, but the main tool used to connect to the Internet does not. If getting a newer computer is not in the cards, there are a few ways you can extend the life of your XP-based computer:

The easiest way to get more life out of Internet Explorer 8 is by installing Chrome Frame . This is a free tool created by Google that ingeniously allows you to “run a web browser inside of your web browser.” Installing Chrome Frame is very simple: you download the file, run it, and you’re done. After that, any websites that require modern features will use the code from Google’s popular Chrome web browser to display the page. Chrome Frame is completely transparent, meaning you won’t notice any differences in the way IE8 normally operates. It’s a nice, simple solution.

As I mentioned, a LOT of people use Internet Explorer for web browsing as it’s built-in to Windows and they don’t realize that alternative browsers are available (there’s a joke in the geek-world that says “Internet Explorer is the #1 web browser used to download a different web browser”). Google Chrome is one such product, offering a modern web experience and it’s completely compatible with Windows XP. Chrome offers some nice advantages over even modern version of Internet Explorer:

Download the Chrome installation file and then follow the prompts. The browser itself is fairly small, so even those on dial-up connections shouldn’t have much difficulty. Once installed, there are a few tweaks to make things more familiar. Click the Tools icon in the upper right corner, select Settings, and perform the following:

That should get you started. Simply open your Google Chrome icon and you’re off and running.

Firefox has been a popular browser for nearly a decade and has a wide fan-base. It offers many of the advantages of Chrome, but the interface is a bit more robust and allows for a high amount of customization. This browser updates automatically so you’ll always have to the latest version (and Mozilla tends to update Firefox frequently). Add-ons are available to perform functions such as mail checking, music streaming, etc., but unlike Chrome, there is not a central app store to get these add-ons.

Download the Firefox installation file and follow the prompts. The installation file is fairly large, so people on slower connections will have to have some patience. Once installed, you can customize the settings to act similar to Internet Explorer. Click the orange “Firefox” button in the upper left corner, click Options, then do the following:

That should be all you need to get going.

While these three tips will help modernize an older computer, do keep in mind that Windows XP came out over a decade ago. You can keep on truckin’ for a while, but a more modern version of Windows should definitely be on your roadmap. There comes a point where you spend more time finding workarounds to get something to work than actually using it, and we’re just about at that point with Windows XP.