IE 11 is Different Enough to Make it Unusable

I'm not sure what happened between Internet Explorer 10 and Internet Explorer 11, but Microsoft has somehow found a way to degrade the experience.

I have been happy with my upgrade to Windows 8.1 across all my devices. The operating system runs faster and there are some neat additions. There are some compatibility issues here and there, but really have to do with 3^rd party drivers that I'll have to wait to be updated. For example, I've noticed video issues on my Lenovo Tablet 2. It's not unusable, just confounding. Windows 8.1 seems to have also found a way to make the Lenovo Tablet 2's battery life (which was stellar on Windows 8) to drain much faster. My Surface devices (Pro and RT) run just fine. Go figure. Who would think that Microsoft's own hardware devices would run Windows 8.1 better than competing partners' devices. (well, except for those Surface RT users who were running a Windows 8.1 Preview)

However, with the web being the most important aspect of computing these days, Windows 8.1's new browser version, IE11, should be an improvement. It's not.

As soon as I started using IE11 I was immediately confronted with incompatibilities and functions that no longer worked. Simple things, like social sharing buttons, reacted so differently that it turned the web against me. IE10 worked great and I was happy. IE11 has forced me to start using another web browser again. And, before you ask…no, it's not Chrome. I will not load the bloated, memory hungry browser on any PC that I own. I'm using my second favorite web browser, Opera. Still, it makes you wonder how many people will be, like me, forced to migrate to a non-Microsoft browser just to get work done. And, once they migrate, a good majority will never come back.

But, I'm not the only one experiencing issues with IE11. Already there are reports of IE11 not working with more important components such as Exchange OWA, Google, and even Outlook.com, and we're not yet a week into the public availability of IE11.

Microsoft has put themselves behind the eight ball again, and unless some mighty improvements show up soon, I'll be dumping IE11 for good. IE8 and IE9 forced me to run an alternate browser for a couple years just because of web site compatibility issues. IE10 brought me back. A short year later, Microsoft is pushing me away again.