My IE9 Beta Preview & Review

[MasterNetra]

I've provided some screenshots and a little review of IE9 Beta.

The Review.
hmm...where to start, lets see. IE9 runs little bit faster then safari maybe on pair, hard to tell. As for HTML 5. It has full canvas support, video tag,poster image, video tag, and MP3 & ACC for audio are supported atm. open formats are not.
I didn't personally test these aspects myself but this is what html5test.com says when evaulating it.
Of course though it probably will have better HTML 5 support at final, this is just a beta after all.

When you open a new tab the page that is display is a gallery of the sites you visit then most, which also includes a activity bar that shows how active you are at those sites (Point of such a thing who knows).

Also as you can see via the preview IE9 supports addons as well. And the Internet Options are a bit different then prior versions. And unlike its predecessors which relied largely on the CPU to run, IE9 relies more on the GPU.

Addtionally as you noticed, like the preview leak the address bar and tabs are next to each, more window space at the cost of tab space. Though judging on the right click options I guess you can or will be able to group tabs...I haven't figured out how to do this though. And lastly you can use the address bar to search like chrome.

[siimo]

I like ability to pin tabs http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IE9SiteSpecificBrowsersAndAddingYourOwnJumpListIte msToPinnedTabs.aspx Think of it like the Chrome "App tab" but better, cause now you can access quick tasks straight from your task-bar, even get updates e.g. new email, tweet or whatever in the task-bar from web apps that support it.

[MasterNetra]

I like ability to pin tabs http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IE9SiteSpecificBrowsersAndAddingYourOwnJumpListIte msToPinnedTabs.aspx Think of it like the Chrome "App tab" but better, cause now you can access quick tasks straight from your task-bar, even get updates e.g. new email, tweet or whatever in the task-bar from web apps that support it.

nice. I haven't dug into all of what it can do. This is just a quick review. But I like it thus far.

[Merk42]

First let me say I'm glad to see a fair review and not just "Hurr here's Evil Mr. Gates from M$'s poor excuse for a browser that was programmed by slave children which is horrible even though I didn't even use it."


I've provided some screenshots and a little review of IE9 Beta.

The Review.
hmm...where to start, lets see. IE9 runs little bit faster then safari maybe on pair, hard to tell. As for HTML 5. It has full canvas support, video tag,poster image, video tag, and MP3 & ACC for audio are supported atm. MP4 & open formats are not.

Second, mp4 is supported
You can go to http://camendesign.com/ and see that the video is mp4 (you can verify by right clicking and saving the video)

[MasterNetra]

First let me say I'm glad to see a fair review and not just "Hurr here's Evil Mr. Gates from M$'s poor excuse for a browser that was programmed by slave children which is horrible even though I didn't even use it."


Second, mp4 is supported
You can go to http://camendesign.com/ and see that the video is mp4 (you can verify by right clicking and saving the video)



hmm...where to start, lets see. IE9 runs little bit faster then safari maybe on pair, hard to tell. As for HTML 5. It has full canvas support, video tag,poster image, video tag, and MP3 & ACC for audio are supported atm. MP4 & open formats are not.
I didn't personally test these aspects myself but this is what html5test.com says when evaulating it.Of course though it probably will have better HTML 5 support at final, this is just a beta after all.


Apparently then the results given by html5test aren't as accurate as I thought. And indeed it does work. Also know any html 5 tag vids that use ogg and webm?

[pwnst*r]

The new beta is quite good for an IE product. I certainly prefer it over Safari on my windows machine, on par with Firefox, but not as good as Chrome which I use by default.

[MasterNetra]

The new beta is quite good for an IE product. I certainly prefer it over Safari on my windows machine, on par with Firefox, but not as good as Chrome which I use by default.

Indeed, it randomly seized up once for me, dunno why, was fine after i closed and reopened it. And has been behaving sense. *shrugs* Oh well its a beta. It happens I suppose.

[MasterNetra]

Also just got done doing some stuff on Frontierville (facebook flash game, pretty fun, beats farmville, but thats just my opinion.) And IE9 handle it beautifully.
...
Oop spoke to soon, can't seem to "ask" for resources and by the I mean no facebook posting for resources, of course IE9 might just be blocking it for some reason. And can't seem to send gifts either... hmm...

[Frogs Hair]

I just upgraded to IE9 an hour an hour ago and consider it an improvemet over IE8. I tried some of the tests on the IE9 test page , the fps test scored a 60. I did not experience a sharp rise in cpu temp. on other tests as reported on another thread.

It seems like browser wars on my computer I have Opera 10.62 and IE9 beta on Windows and FF beta on Ubuntu.

[Old Marcus]

I like it so far, incredibly quick bootup and zippy while running as well. The fact that it supports more HTML5 and CSS3 gubbins is nice, although having the address bar and tabs on the same line could make things awkward for people with many tabs open at a time.

To those who will undoubtedly moan about integration with Windows, I see no problem with MS utilising the power of their own OS to improve the browser experience. Of course, since they alone have the full source to the browser and OS, that does give them an advantage.

All in all, I think they have made a browser capable of standing up in the browser wars, which despite what many will say, are still continuing.

(Although if you think about it, this is BW2, BW1 was Netscape vs IE. Far less casualties mind.)

[MasterNetra]

I like it so far, incredibly quick bootup and zippy while running as well. The fact that it supports more HTML5 and CSS3 gubbins is nice, although having the address bar and tabs on the same line could make things awkward for people with many tabs open at a time.

To those who will undoubtedly moan about integration with Windows, I see no problem with MS utilising the power of their own OS to improve the browser experience. Of course, since they alone have the full source to the browser and OS, that does give them an advantage.

All in all, I think they have made a browser capable of standing up in the browser wars, which despite what many will say, are still continuing.

(Although if you think about it, this is BW2, BW1 was Netscape vs IE. Far less casualties mind.)

Yea... Isn't there more browsers today then there was during the proclaimed period of the browser wars?

[pwnst*r]

Choice is good!

[CharlesA]

Nice review. I don't think it'll make me want to stop using FF tho. :)

[MasterNetra]

Nice review. I don't think it'll make me want to stop using FF tho. :)

Well if one Ubuntu or some other distro, clearly your not. :p

But yea its beta and I have come across a few bugs here and there. But its looking promising.

[v1ad]

definitely an improvement. looks like they are taking a bit out of Firefox 4.0 and chrome.

[MasterNetra]

definitely an improvement. looks like they are taking a bit out of Firefox 4.0 and chrome.

Yeap, its often easier to adopt parts and aspects of other things then to come up with something new. Not a new thing, technically thats how our creativity works, when it comes down to it we as a species have never "created" a new idea. We have always and continue to, simply take aspects of things, hardness,softness, color, shape, parts of shapes, etc and built "new" ideas. Even taking other people's ideas and combining and tweaking them to build something "new". We have never had a original thought that wasn't based on something in some way shape or form that already exist or is based on something that has roots that go back to something that exists.

[Giant Speck]

Dear Microsoft,

I hope you know now what it's like to make a quality browser.

Sincerely,
Giant Speck

All silliness aside, I really like the idea of "tab tearing". Sure, it's awfully similar to existing features in Chrome, Firefox, and possibly Safari, but unlike those browsers, IE9 doesn't reload the page when you "tear" the tab to a new window. This is amazing for when I'm watching a video and don't want to lose my place because I have to open the tab in a new window.

Other than that, I really like how zippy the browser feels, even when using it in my Virtualbox install of Windows 7 (I'm on vacation and don't have my Windows laptop to test on). I also like the much more simplified interface. Well, except for those awful, ugly back/forward buttons.

[sdowney717]

definitely an improvement. looks like they are taking a bit out of Firefox 4.0 and chrome.

so, will there be lawsuits against MS for stealing intellectual property rights?
take from others
unwilling to share
temper tantrum lawsuits
sounds like a spoiled child

[Khakilang]

Also just got done doing some stuff on Frontierville (facebook flash game, pretty fun, beats farmville, but thats just my opinion.) And IE9 handle it beautifully.
...
Oop spoke to soon, can't seem to "ask" for resources and by the I mean no facebook posting for resources, of course IE9 might just be blocking it for some reason. And can't seem to send gifts either... hmm...

You can become my neighbor and send me all the gifts.
):P

[sxmaxchine]

i used ie9 and although it is fast it still has problems rendering pages while other current browsers can show them perfectly.

[Shpongle]

I like ability to pin tabs http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IE9SiteSpecificBrowsersAndAddingYourOwnJumpListIte msToPinnedTabs.aspx Think of it like the Chrome "App tab" but better, cause now you can access quick tasks straight from your task-bar, even get updates e.g. new email, tweet or whatever in the task-bar from web apps that support it.

this can be done with mozilla prism AFAIK

[wkhasintha]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_71LxQTgQSQI/S9KOrWaKCqI/AAAAAAAAAJA/WdF0IPRmADg/s400/Meh_cat.jpg

[pwnst*r]

but unlike those browsers, IE9 doesn't reload the page when you "tear" the tab to a new window.

? In Chrome videos only pause and resume once you let go of the tab. Unless I'm not understanding tearing. I have four tabs open, one of them a youtube video playing. If I want to pull that tab to its own window, the video will pause until I release left click, and resume where it left off.

[pwnst*r]

i used ie9 and although it is fast it still has problems rendering pages while other current browsers can show them perfectly.

Examples?

[MasterNetra]

Examples?

facebook, try loading while the browser isn't maximized then expand the window, it has issues with filling this way, of course I suppose thats just a minor example. Of course once again its in beta so one probably shouldn't expect it to be perfect.

[pwnst*r]

Thanks, MN, I'll take a look when I get home.

[NCLI]

I think my major gripe with IE9(And IE in general for the past many years) is that they really haven't added anything new of their own. It feels to me like they just look at Firefox at Chrome, and then copy their features.

Or am I missing something? Is there some new, innovative feature in IE9 not found in either FF or Chrome?

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Saving vertical space is all fine and dandy, but that title bar looks awful to me. Every widget on it looks completely different. Different height; different margin on the bottom; the tabs have rounded corners, the address bar has square corners; the Stop / Reload buttons are needlessly separated given that only one of the two will ever do anything useful at a given time; the fact that an item refers to a particular other thing (like Add Bookmark and the current page) seems to have no weight on where that item is placed…

It looks like they divided that bar into chunks and assigned each one to a different team.

Speaking of ugly design, does it still have the same horrific Internet Options dialog, or have they figured out that it's unusable yet?


Oh well, even in that department it's a massive improvement on IE8, and I'm pretty excited about its speed.
It's fun to see Microsoft playing catch-up with open standards, touting their support as a feature :)
Do be careful, though: this poses an opportunity for them to sneak in proprietary extensions, like the last time they released a decent web browser.

[whiskeylover]

Does it still have the same horrific Internet Options dialog, or have they figured out that it's unusable yet?

Its pretty usable.