Now i am often asked to explain my reasoning for using IE8 especially as I’m doing computer science, i am often ridiculed for it, but i continue to use it and i have 2 simple reasons:
Firstly IE8 has a decent UI the only thing that is slightly better is Chrome (but i will come back to why i don’t use Chrome), i personally find that Firefox has a ugly and cluttered interface, and that its default theme is crap. Yes, by default IE8 does have a slightly cluttered interface but as soon as you turn of the favourites bar, it is perfectly fine, nice and tidy. The chrome UI is even simpler and tidier. Safari 3 is as ugly as iTunes is, it ignores any native UI components its just terrible, yes Safari 4 is an improvement, but it still as bad as Firefox.
Secondly the features. IE8 has built in developer features that are almost as good as firebug, but i don’t use them that often so they are not a killer feature. What i do like is my RSS feed manager at a key press away, a feature i have yet to find in Firefox (standard install I’m not counting 3rd party plug-ins). Chrome just doesn’t seem to have any features.
So in conclusion while Firefox has the better set of 3rd Party plug-ins, BUT it has a dreadful interface, and a lack of a decent RSS manager. Chrome has a slightly better UI, but has a complete lack of features.
That’s why i use IE8, its fast, its responsive, it has a decent UI (could be better though), it has a brilliant RSS Manager, and very good built-in developer tools.