Posted: 16th Sep, 2010 By: MarkJ
The first beta release of Microsoft's next and much enhanced website browsing software,
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), has just been released for public download by owners of the software giant's
Windows Vista and
Windows 7 operating systems.
Most striking is the fact that MS has actually produced a reasonably good piece of kit, featuring a clean / simplified user interface (UI), HTML5 + CSS3 support, strong standards compliancy and significant speed improvements, not least from its JavaScript and hardware acceleration improvements. Chrome and Firefox might finally have to worry, a little.
Some IE9 Highlights
* Clean and Simplified User Interface
* Win7 Specific Features (Pin websites in taskbar and jump lists)
* HTML 5 and CSS3 Support (Not perfect but not behind either)
* Popular Websites Summary of Most Visited Sites
* Speed Boost from New Javascript Engine (Chakra)
* Speed Boost from New Hardware Graphics and Text Acceleration
Despite IE9 being a sizeable improvement on Microsoft's semi-standards compliant browsers of old, it is still only at the first BETA stage and we would not recommend that people install it until the final release. IE9 betas have a habit of being far from perfect and will also remove your existing IE8 or IE7 installation.
In addition, Microsoft will not be supporting IE9 on the ageing Windows XP platform. This is hardly surprising given its age and the new browsers enforced need for DirectX10 and 11 support, which only comes with Vista and 7.
IE9 Beta Download and Details
http://www.beautyoftheweb.co.uk