Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 9
Posted by Eric Torres on Tue, Mar 15, 2011 @ 11:28 AM
Last night at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, the final version of Windows Internet Explorer 9 was released and is now available for download.
Microsoft opted, this time, not to offer IE9 support for Windows XP. So, the 9th version of the IE9 web browser can only be installed on Windows Vista or Windows 7, a decision that has spurred a lot of critics, as an estimated 60% of the computers in the world are running on the Windows XP operating system.
The new web browser promises a better Internet browsing experience. Given that IE is losing its share to popular browsers like Firefox and Chrome, Microsoft expects to strike back with IE9. Let’s take a look at what’s new in the new Internet Explorer:
New Interface:
The new IE9 interface is surely inspired from the best of Chrome and Firefox. The first big change is in the location of the URL bar which now aligns with the tabs, occupying minimum vertical space on the screen. The toolbar on the top combines most of the settings and other tweaking buttons go provide optimum space for the web pages. The address bar is ‘smart’ in the sense that it gives suggestions from your bookmarks, history and relevance of the query you’re typing in it. The tabs can be separated from window by dragging them out to form a new window – something that you can do also in Chrome and Firefox. The new tab also shows your most visited & bookmarked sites for easy access.
Start-Up Time:
There is a considerable improvement in the software load time. The browser does seem to load faster than any of the IE versions in the past. The most welcome addition is ‘hardware acceleration’ which uses GPU to process graphics heavy web pages thus taking off the load from CPU and improving load times. This is most likely to improve your game demo and video preview experience.
IE9 introduces support to HTML5. It’s definitely not 100% HTML5 as the HTML5 standards are not final yet. We are expecting a lot of improvement in the support with future updates to IE9.
Application Shortcuts:
Now you can directly drop the Facebook URL to taskbar of the browser and IE9 will automatically add links to relevant pages of Facebook (Feed, Profile, Inbox etc.). Microsoft has partnered with several popular service providers to enable this feature.
Performance Advisor:
Power users will find this feature very useful. Those obsessed with speed can now follow recommendations from the add-on performance adviser to get the most out of their browser. The performance adviser detects the programs, scripts and apps that slow down your browsing experience and provides a one-stop solution to turn them on or off.
Improved Download Manager:
Learning from Firefox & Chrome, Microsoft has included a nice download manager which is a central place to manage and track all your downloads. There’s nothing new or revolutionary in it, but it’s a feature we all got used to after Firefox introduced it.
InPrivate Browsing:
The feature that Chrome introduced is now available in IE9. You can easily switch to private browsing mode that lets you browse anonymously without any of the site collecting any information from you.
What’s your take on IE9? Do you think it poses a serious competition to Firefox or Chrome?