@wristband Said
I'm glad that you enjoy IE8, and that it's working well for you. I know that you don't want to turn this into a IE-hating thread, and I understand that. I just want to add some experience I've had with it.
At work, for whatever reason, we are only allowed IE as an internet browser. I use it to look up data on products, compare prices for new stuff, email reports to managers, etc. Last week a manager download the beta. So far, it's frozen about twice a day. About 1 out of every 10 pages it skews the layout. You are right, it is pretty fast, but not any faster than much older versions of Netscape, Firefox, Chrome or Minefield (another Mozilla browser). It is, however, faster than previous versions of IE.
If you're an IE lover, or just prefer to play it safe and use the Microsoft browser that's probably default on your system, I recommend it. That is, if you have a decent amount of RAM (as it is, like most of windows--especially Vista--a resource hog) and a decent internet connection.
I'll stick to firefox, as with all of its add-ons and the ability for the user to modify the way it connects, downloads, etc., it's the fastest and most supported browser I've ever used.
Ah well I see where you are coming from, I generally only use the internet at home and i'm not home that often, but I imagine it must be extremely frustrating when you are trying to do work and it crashes, as it is still a beta version though, I dont know if microsoft will sort out these bugs or not?
I do occasionally use firefox but because i've been using ie for so long it takes me a while to get the hang of it.