If you’re old enough, you’ll get a chuckle out of the title of this post.  If you don’t get it, ask someone over the age of 35, or maybe 40.  Anyway. . .

A little while ago, I was forced to start using IE8.  My IE7, for no reason at all, stopped working.  And, I need IE, so I called in an expert.  Neither of us could figure out why IE7 stopped working, and the only solution we could find was to install IE8.

First, a few words about Microsoft, as long as I’m complaining.  I knew I was in trouble when I saw the little icon that looks like a ripped piece of paper at the top of the browser window.  Know what it’s for?

Evidently, it’s to make IE8 work more like IE7.  What a concept.  Introduce a new piece of software, then give people a way to make believe they’re still using the old one.  Good heavens.

The official explanation of the icon is this:  “Compatibility View:  websites designed for older browsers will often look better, and problems such as out-of-place menus, images, or text will be corrected.”

Great.

Anyway, I started out complaining about Google, and this is all related, really.  In IE7, you could use the Preferences link on the Google screen, and choose “Do not provide query suggestions in the search box”.  And, instead of all of Google’s suggestions, you could select from a drop down of your own recent searches.

In IE8, the Preferences link still take you to a page that has that option, but it works a little differently now.  In IE8, if you turn off Google’s suggestions, you don’t get ANY drop down of search terms to choose from.

I know Google is just trying to help, but I’ve about had it.  I don’t want to have to type past all of Google’s suggestions to get to the search I do a lot.  I want my browser to work the way I want to work.

Google, if you’re listening, how about introducing a version of Google for us independent cusses??