Windows Internet Explorer 9 Beta Review

Internet Explorer 9 Beta is delivering and solving a lot of the issues.

Internet Explorer 9 Beauty of the web

For some time now, we have been choosing Firefox or Google Chrome or other alternative web browsers from Internet Explorer because Microsoft was not delivering as well as others web browsers. Now Internet Explorer 9 Beta – which by the way is available now for download – is delivering and solving a lot of the issues.

It seems that Microsoft has been listening to users feedbacks and paying attention to the competition (Firefox and Chrome). With Windows Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft is back in the game of web browsers.

The new IE9 has been built from the ground up, it is elegant, blends beautifully with Windows 7, easier to use, and it is fast thanks to new features like HTML5 support, Hardware-acceleration, new JavaScript engine, and many more.

New User Interface or UI

  • Enlargement of the back button for easier access.
  • The address bar and the search box have been combined into the new One Box. Because a lot of people don’t like to share their keystrokes, there is an option to disable suggestions when typing in One Box.
  • The viewable space has been optimized to provide maximum visibility of the website.
  • Tear-off tabs let you easily snap pages out of the main window using Windows Aero Snap. The other choice you have is to grab a tab down to your Windows 7 taskbar to pin the page; next time you launch the page it will feel like a Windows application.
  • New empty tab. When you create a new tab, IE9 will display the most visited websites.
  • The file menu was removed, but you will find 3 buttons left: Home, Favorites, and Tools.

  • Another design feature that is worth to mention is when you launch a pinned page, now IE9 change the buttons colors to match the color theme of the website along with an icon of the website to the left of the buttons and also you can notice that when you launch a pinned page the home button will disappear.

Facebook Pinned Down

Top features

Hardware accelerated graphics and text

New graphics capabilities and improved performance provide immersive and rich experiences in Internet Explorer 9. Hardware-accelerated text, video and graphics will make your websites seem like if they were a Windows application. HD videos are smooth, graphics are clear and more responsive. Websites and applications load faster and are more responsive with sub-system enhancements like the new JavaScript engine that utilizes the power of modern multicore processors.

Clean browser user interface

Simplicity should be the name of the new user interface, because is it not clutter anymore, it brings focus to the websites’ content, and by default you only have the essentials tools for browsing.

Pinned sites

With the new pinned sites, you can access your websites right from the Windows taskbar without open the web browser. There are sites that are full featured web application and they have their own navigation, site search, and notification of new content that you depend on, rather than using browsing controls. By pinning a site, the site – not the browser – is at the center of the experience.

Internet Explorer 9 website Pinned

Jump Lists

Beyond the ability to pin any website to the taskbar, IE9 also provides an intergrated Windows navigation experience with websites that support Jump List and thumbnail preview controls in the taskbar.

New Tap page

The new tap page has been revamped to beautifully display the most visited websites.

Each site’s icon and primary color are used on the New Tab page to help you identify sites more easely. Also, a site indicator shows if the site is visited often or not. From the New Tap you can also reopen closed tabs.

Internet Explorer 9 New Tab

Tear-off tabs and Windows Aero snap

You now have the ability to snap off a page, pin it down on the Windows taskbar, compare websites side by side, etc. This will be an enhancement of  snap in Chrome.

To tear-off a tap just click a tab and drag.

Internet Explorer 9 Tear-off

One box

The address bar and the search box have been combined into the new One Box. Because a lot of people don’t like to share their keystrokes there is an option to disable suggestions when typing in One Box.

Internet Explorer 9 One Box

Notification bar

The notification bar was re-designed and re-position to the bottom of the browser. And now messages are easier to understand and respond to.

Internet Explorer 9 Notification bar

Add-on Performance Advisor

Downloads and add-ons management.

Internet Explorer 9 can control the files that you download so they don’t ruin your browsing performance.

There is a new download manager, very much like Firefox download manager, that also provides you with the status of downloads, a secure area for download files, and the final location where downloads are stored.

Internet Explorer 9 Download Manager

Chakra, the new JavaScript engine

One of the major performance improvements of Internet Explorer 9 is speed. One of the reasons behind this is the Chakra, the new Javascript engine that it was optimized to better utilize multi cores computer’s CPU.

HTML5 Support

There is an extensive support for HTML5, SVG, CSS3, ECMAScript5, and DOM that provides a new set of compatibilities that will help developers to code once and know that it will work in all modern broswers.

F12 Developer Tools

In the new version of the built-in developer tool in IE9 there are a user agent switching too, a network traffic inspector, an improved JavaScript profiler, and integrated support for new web standards.

To wrap things up

IE9 feels really stable even though it is still in the beta stage. Windows Internet Explorer 9 is showing a lot of promises, a lot of improvement comes in the speed, the re-design is beautiful, and the new technology behind it is pretty great. I just hope that with all these new modern browsers coming out, we get to the point that no matter which web browser we use, all the information will be display in the same way and not to have to re-code a website for every web browser.

To learn more click here to watch Windows Internet Explorer: Keynote On Demand or the picture below

 

Internet Explorer 9 beta keynotes picture link

 

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Useful links

Source http://www.beautyoftheweb.com

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About the author

Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me.