Internet Explorer 9 Beta, the latest from Microsoft, tones down on the browser fluff to offer a better user experience. The interface is clean and unobtrusive. The underlying engine has been upgraded and tweaked. It shows clear performance benefits with full hardware-acceleration. Rather than focusing on building a better browser, it appears Microsoft focused on building a better browsing experience.
IE9 is being built to take advantage of the latest web standards. HTML5 support is at the forefront of this development. Most of the new features in IE9 won’t seem that new to users of Chrome or even Firefox. It even looks a lot like Chrome. This isn’t all that surprising as I’m still convinced Google only created Chrome to serve as a template for other browser developers. IE9 has fallen right into the trap, much to the end-user’s benefit. New features include:
- Notifications that pop up in a bar at the bottom of the window, so they don’t interrupt your work flow
- Tearable tabs
- A combined search / location bar that shows results from Bing as you type
One important new development is the addition of apps to the IE experience. You can turn any website into an application, which lets you launch it in a single click. Users of Chrome will recognize this feature immediately. A few interesting things to note about IE’s implementation, though:
- Application windows still have all the navigation and menus attached
- You can add tabs to an app window
- Your add-ons don’t work inside the application window
So, while you have the added benefit of being able to group related sites in a single window, there is a drawback in that users can’t use any of your add-ons in those tabs. This could be a major problem for many users, but Microsoft says it is set up this way by design. Also, Some of the hottest features in IE9 are missing from the Vista version and XP has been left out in the cold completely. It seems MS is focusing mostly on Windows 7 at this point.
In any case, it seems everyone can agree that IE9 is a major step up from IE8. The interface and underlying engine are snappier and more responsive. Rendering speeds are improved. They’ve even decided to embrace the latest web technologies, which should make developers happier in the long run.
Have you tried IE9 Beta? What do you think?