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Microsoft Releases Final Version of its New IE9 Website Browser

Posted: 15th Mar, 2011 By: MarkJ

Software giant Microsoft has today officially released the final, consumer-ready, version of its new significantly faster and more secure Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) website browser for download.

The software sports a much cleaner and highly simplified User Interface (UI), improved web design standards compliancy (CSS3, HTML5 etc.), hardware (graphics card) acceleration of web content (very fast) and a faster JavaScript engine (Chakra).

microsoft ie9 - original picture from beta1

Microsoft hopes that its new browser will win back some of its lost market share. Estimates from Net Applications suggest that 56% of computer users around the world use IE, while 22% take Firefox, 11% prefer Chrome and 6% are on Safari (Apple). Opera usually accounts for a percentage point or two as well.

Dean Hachamovitch, MS's Corporate Vice President for Internet Explorer, said:

"IE9 will be available to Windows customers via Windows Update. Machines running the IE9 beta or release candidates will be upgraded to the final release automatically. As this post about Windows 7 explains, no software project is ever really done. We will continue to monitor and act on the real world experience with IE9. The Beta and RC process showed servicing in action, and we have every intention to continue delivering on this important aspect of the product.

The Web is beautiful and powerful because of the developers and designers who build it. For some time, the people who build the Web have had better ideas for their customers than browsers have been able to deliver. Enabling developers to build rich and immersive sites that feel like native applications on your Windows 7 PC is at the heart of our approach with IE9.

On behalf of the individuals and companies who have worked with us to deliver this product, and the many people at Microsoft who have built it, thank you for visiting www.BeautyOfTheWeb.com and using IE9."

We've been using IE9 since its first public release last year on our Netbook and on the whole it's quite impressive, for a Microsoft browser. The hardware acceleration in particular is fast and better than most or all of their rivals, although that could easily change.

Sadly IE9 is by no means perfect. We still found occasional problems with how it handles CSS3 (style sheet) rending, albeit only small errors or missing functions. It's no doubt a huge improvement over IE8 and could give Firefox a run for its money, although Chrome's latest performance might be harder to beat.

Sadly any hope that it could wrestle back some market share from its rivals have already been dashed because the new browser is only available to users of Microsoft's Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems. Windows XP is excluded. We highly recommend downloading it.