Internet Explorer 9 Beta review

After we install new windows on our PC first thing we do is open internet explorer and download mozilla firefox or Google chrome.Without fail we have been doing this for almost last few years.There are lots of reasons for this.The main reason is speed and interface of these browsers compared to IE. Also IE was lacking lots of new features which are available in other browsers like chrome,firefox.

However you cant complain any more,microsoft has unleashed beta version of IE9 few months ago.So lets have a look at the latest offerings from microsoft in the field of browsers.

The first thing that you will notice about IE9 is that its new simplified interface.The new interface has got mixed responses but still the new interface is much better than older interface that we had in older IE.”Unlocking the beauty of the Web.” That’s Microsoft’s new tag line for Internet Explorer 9.New minimalist design focuses more on content rather than browser giving perfect surfing experience.Customisation freaks will feel bereft as there’s no skinning – instead the back button adopts the underlying style sheet of the website you’re visiting, and the bar at the top renders in Aero glass.

IE9 is stuffed with lots of new features.IE9 lets you separate out a particular sites which you visit frequently and lock them right to the Windows Taskbar.You drag a site to the bar, and when pinned it pulls the favicon so it looks like it’s actually a separate program.When you right click a pinned site icon, you’ll get a jumplist that by default includes a menu option to enable InPrivate browsing (a browsing mode that doesn’t leave cookies, cache files or browsing history behind). But Microsoft says that site designers will be able to add some code for putting custom menu items on the jumplist.

Address bar in IE9 acts as search field also.Although the default search engine is Bing but you can install Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Facebook and lots of others through the Add-On page.The bar also displays history results.

The new tab page shows frequently visited sites along with a meter of how actively you visit them.Also you each tab is listed as different process in windows task manager so you can kill a particular page instead of killing whole application.

Privacy is also at the fore in this version of IE.You can block elements of web pages – such as those that gather browsing metrics, though you have to do so on a site-by-site basis. However, you can’t use that to block ads, and at present there isn’t a dedicated ad-blocking add-on, which might be a dealbreaker for some.

A long overdue addition to IE 9 is a download manager that, as you’d expect, lets you see all your active downloads, just as you can with other Windows web browsers.You can see the status of the downloads plus you can pause or cancel it.Microsoft has also added in some new protections against malicious downloads. The SmartScreen download reputation feature can identify safe, popular downloads and will let those files download without a warning message.

Microsoft is trying to improve IE by supporting the latest web technologies.Few of these newly supported technologies by IE9 are GPU Acceleration, HTML5 video support, the new “Chakra” JavaScript engine, support for new-fangled web technologies like CSS3 and SVG2, and its GPU acceleration.And Yes,the IE9 is quite amazingly fast due to all these things.Also the browsing experience was also swift.Web pages do load quickly on IE9 although not as fast as chrome.

Open browser / Google.com

IE8                              9.2 seconds

IE9                              8.72 seconds

Firefox 3.6               6.13 seconds

Chrome 6.0.4         3.59 seconds

SunSpider JavaScript – This benchmark tests JavaScript. The lower the score the better.

Acid3 -Higher is better

So the Final Question that comes into your mind is whether IE9 has capability to replace Firefox or Chrome?? Well the answer isnt straight forward in this case.It all depends upon you.All we can say is IE9 has sure got bright future in browser market and it might help microsoft to regain its position in battle of browsers.Although IE 9 isnt as fast as chrome but still we can assure you that you wont be disappointed in trying IE9.

Pros: GPU acceleration,Very clean UI; ability to pin websites to the taskbar, safe browsing, standards-focused.

Cons: Slow install, forces a reboot, the minimalist layout might not be to everyone’s taste.Supported on Windows Vista SP2 and 7,NO  XP  :(

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For windows 7 32-bit from here For Windwos Vista 32-bit from here

For windows 7 64-bit from here For Windows Vista 64-bit from here