Designing websites for IE is different than designing for firefox/safari/opera/netscape, etc.

Supposedly IE 8 is an attempt to be more compliant to web standards that all other browsers abide by. While I would never use Internet Exploder, I think they are heading in the right direction... i guess its better for beta testers to spot this Google maps problem, cause the average joe schmoe user will switch to MapQuest.

It's an early beta. There are a ton of other problems, and I doubt Microsoft would be stupid enough to specifically try and counter their competition with some kind of sabotage--then turn that browser over to technologists and journalists before the product is even out.

In all fairness, open up IE8 and look at MS Live maps [maps.live.com.] They look equally broken.

I'd love to tell you how it looks on IE6, but it keeps crashing when I try to open Google Maps. <-- TRUE!

You fools!

Can't you see that Microsoft is just trying to give users more options when it comes to zooming in or out of the map.

But seriously, it is sad how most of the things we do on the Internet involve all sorts of hidden checks either server side or in HTML and script code for dozens of different browser variations.

Microsoft, having don its best to make the Internet irrelevant has finally given in, in theory, to standards efforts, but we'll have to live with this legacy for another eight to ten years (assuming they finally get it right). Yes, other browsers have compatibility problems too, but a good case can be made for Microsoft's "unique" behavior to be intentional subversion, not just sloppy programming.

If Internet Explorer were to be the only browser still standing I'd probably use it, short of that, never again.

Awesome, I didn't think my javascript had enough if...elseif statements yet. I'm also glad to know my test plan for my code has just gotten larger too, I don't feel I spend enough time developing for IE's quirks.

if 'IE6'
...
else if 'IE7'
...
else if 'IE8'
...
else //do it how everyone else implemented it.
...

Sweet.. are Yahoo maps broken also? (I have a luxury of not being able to install IE8 on my Ubuntu laptop)