Ron Schenone

Internet Explorer 9 Beta Ready For Download Today

Posted by on Sep 15, 2010 | 11 Comments

I am going to present this exactly as it was presented to be by my MVP leader at Microsoft:

The wait is nearly over for the newest beta version of Microsoft’s browser, Internet Explorer 9.  Starting on September 15, 2010 (PDT), users will be invited to download this newest test version.  Internet Explorer 9 offers substantial improvements the current version including: a streamlined interface, full hardware-accelerated HTML5, modern SVG and native JavaScript integration, support for the Web Open Font Format as well as faster overall performance. The new Internet Explorer 9 Beta provides a more secure, stable and fast browsing experience.

Internet Explorer 9 Beta is compatible with Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 PCs. It is not available for earlier versions of Windows Vista or with PCs running Windows XP.

Find out download details and more at beautyoftheweb.com.

I can hear the Windows XP users screaming in the background. :-)

Comments welcome.

PS You may have to wait to get your comments posted. I am leaving at the crack of dawn on 09-15-10 heading into the wild blue yonder. I won’t be back on the computer until the morning of the 16th.

  • http://www.jessicafalvey.com Jessica Falvey

    It’s great news! I love IE. But i think google chrome is better

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Hi Jessica,
      If you love IE you will love 9.

  • Steven Jobes

    Cool story, bro!

  • Ryan Farmer

    I for one am glad that IE 9 is finally on par with Firefox and Chrome, but it still has the problem of the lack of extensions.

    That having been said, IE’s lack of standards compliance has been causing all kinds of frustration for people who design websites. I’ve heard some of them spend nearly 40% of their development efforts making sure that the page works in MSIE, and have to pollute their code with ugly hacks to make it work. That might be coming to an end with IE 9. It’s also not irritatingly slow like it used to be.

    That being said, I don’t feel there’s anything revolutionary in IE 9 that Firefox can’t do as well or better, but at least IE is in the same area code now when it comes to rendering functionality.

    I don’t see why Windows XP users would feel left out, every other browser still works on XP and will for many years to come. Most of the hardware acceleration features in Firefox 4 even work on XP. :)

    I’ve been kicking IE 9 around for the last day and have to run it through Privoxy for ad blocking, but that’s my largest complaint so far. Overall it’s a good job.

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Hi Ryan,
      Agree. Why doesn’t IE have extensions?
      Microsoft seems to be always following the leader in the browser wars.

  • Dick

    I’m an XP user, and I’m not screaming in the background because I use Firefox and don’t care enough about browsers to go to the pain of moving to a new one. Firefox isn’t perfect, neither are the others, but so what? It meets my ultimate test:
    “GOOD ENOUGH”. Plus I’m used to it and can use, maintain, fix, and get around it rapidly and without any effort.

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Hi Dick,
      I downloaded 9 yesterday. I’ll be giving it a try.
      I agree about FF. It works just fine.

  • Ryan Farmer

    Ron: Microsoft is still insisting on the ActiveX/BHO system for extending IE, which are not just extensions but full Windows programs running in the context of the browser.

    Whereas other browsers can be extended using things like CSS, Javascript, and in the case of Firefox, XUL, IE requires compiled binary extensions.

    As long as Microsoft insists on this, there will always be few free and useful extensions for IE, because almost none of the code used in other browser would be reusable under IE.

    Firefox extensions are pretty much write once and run anywhere, they run on every processor and every OS that Firefox does. Chrome and Safari share the same basic extension format so it takes very little work to support one when you already have an add-on working in the other.

    You notice the lame extensions that Microsoft makes examples of on the IE Blog, Yahoo Toolbar, Bing Bar, the Contosso Bar (WTF is that?) The AVG toolbar… Seems like you can extend IE any way you like as long as it’s a toolbar. *grin*

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Ryan,
      Again thanks for the info. IE will continue to lose market share because of this lameness. :-)

  • Ryan Farmer

    I should mention that since IE support h.264, you can have an almost entirely flashless Youtube if you like, since Youtube can send IE the raw video without the flash container.

    IE supports WebM as well if you install a codec pack (I recommend Sharky007).

    Of course, Chrome supports both out of the box.

    Firefox and Opera only support WebM.

    Apple only supports h.264. :P What a mess, huh?

    WebM has managed to scare the MPEG Cartel enough to commit to royalty free h.264 streaming forever. So even if the WebM format itself never catches on, it’s already done plenty of good.

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Thanks Ryan for the info.