Internet Explorer 8 - I need a way to make it load modern sites.

Is there a way to make Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 (Internet Explorer 8.0.7601.17514) load modern sites just fine? Here's a list of useful things for me:

- A proxy that loads modern sites on Internet Explorer 8 so IE8 can load them right - that would work on Windows 7 SP1 if it was in an installer package.

- A browser that looks like Internet Explorer 8 but loads sites just fine, and is able to run on Windows 7.

- A patch to Internet Explorer 8 so it can load modern sites correctly.

Please help me and do not say it's impossible or to quit using Internet Explorer 8 or IE in general; if you want to do that just leave.

The first question that comes to mind is: Why? Why would you want to use a browser that's so old and was inheretly so bad at what it does?

Internet Explorer is a completely obsolete and abandoned browser, specially since IE8 is not even the latest version which is even worse in terms of compatibility.

There are a couple of reasons why it'll never work. First, IE8 is a 2009 browser, that's 15 years old browser that was made for the web standards existing in 2009 and totally unaware of the developments occured in the next 15 years. The web has changed too much for it to be compatible enough to run anything "modern", plain and simple. This is not a flaw in IE itself, put any 15 years old browser in today's web and it'll struggle to render anything. Internet Explorer is even worse because it was, in addition, very bad at complying with the web standards.

IE11 was a lot better and is still bundled in modern Windows versions, but again, it's still obsolete by modern standars and getting worse every day, as the web is still evolving quite fast. Not having received a single update in the last 10 years to address those means that it'll only be able to cope with the most simplistic pages, but anything using tech created in the last 10 years will fail to some degree. It's fundamentally a dead end.

Now to address your suggestions:

lukewt1017 said:

A proxy that loads modern sites on Internet Explorer 8 so IE8 can load them right - that would work on Windows 7 SP1 if it was in an installer package.

A proxy can help with newer security protocols that IE doesn't understands but are used extensively today, basically by downgrading security to the point that IE8 can understand it It also introduces a potential security problem in that you now have a program snooping everything you do though it so you can be victim of a man-in-the-middle attack (just like antiviruses snoop all your web traffic to "scan" it).
It won't, however, help in any way with web standards. You still get modern HTML out of it, so IE8 won't still be able to understand a great part of it.

lukewt1017 said:

A browser that looks like Internet Explorer 8 but loads sites just fine, and is able to run on Windows 7.

This is the best shot, with enough plugins and skinning any current browser could in theory be made to look like IE8 looked back in the day. Of course, it won't be the real thing, just a recreation using a modern browser to give an illusion instead. I'm not aware of any such a project going on, but googling around may get a good idea of any prospects for it.

lukewt1017 said:

A patch to Internet Explorer 8 so it can load modern sites correctly.

In theory a plugin might be able to parse current HTML/CSS/JavaScript and understand it correctly using the real IE8 engine. I have no idea if the IE8 extensibility model allows enough customization of web parsing to make it possible, and if so, if anyone made the effort to actually implement it. This in combination with the first point would make the real IE8 usable in some real-world situations, but a LOT of work is necesary and I'm not sure someone actually would do it. Googling around would tell if there is something like that.

lukewt1017 said:

do not say it's impossible or to quit using Internet Explorer 8 or IE in general

If it's close to impossible any other answer would be incorrect, even if you don't like it. I think it'll be very hard to see it done anytime, but with enough effort it could be done (and with "enough" I really mean a lot of work)

To give you some credit, and to contradict pretty much everything I've said, what you're proposing has been, to some point, already done for something similar.
Otter Browser is a project that tries to recreate the user interface of the old Opera 12 browser on a modern engine, not much different to your second proposed point. It's far from a good day-to-day browser but it did a relatively good job trying to clone the interface while keeping compatibility for current websites. Again, it's not the real thing, but an imitation powered by another browser engine, but for the UI parts it's a good thing if you liked the older version.
Maybe there is a chance a similar project exists somewhere for Internet Explorer somewhere, or you can create enough attention so someone starts it off.