Month: September 2010

So who would have thought? Redmond has got their act into gear and done some serious work on Internet Explorer. Personally, the first thing that I’ve always done when installing Windows is replacing IE, first with Firefox and now with Chrome. But I decided to check out the IE9 beta.. and wow! Admittedly it does look like a rip off of Chrome but Microsoft has also made some serious changes that seem to have sped up loading times, new tab open times, rendering also seems faster and it appears to be more standards compliant.

Finally! IE9 comes with a download manager! As well as the Chrome/Opera/Safari style start screen with the thumbnails. It also comes with a very Chrome-esque interface. Removing all toolbars and leaving only a few buttons. It takes full advantage of Windows 7’s transparency. When I first started it, it gave me the option to disable any add-ons (showing the time that they took to load). I ended up killing the Adobe toolbar saving 2.7 seconds.

I did some really quick tests.

I used the following:

• Chrome 6.0.472.62
• Internet Explorer 9.0.7930.16406 (beta)
• Opera 10.62
• Firefox 3.6.10
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
• Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18943 (Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit)
• WebKit nightly build r67643 (Mac OS X 10.6.3)

Don’t forget that IE is still in beta! It’s doing really well compared to IE8. Still not up there with Chrome in some areas (but beta remember!!). To say I’m impressed is an understatement. Microsoft have come a fair way.

Continue reading “IE9: Wow!”