Internet Explorer 9 Beta: Features, News and Rumors

“Beauty of the web, “reads the slogan about the event Microsoft held in San Francisco at the official release of the first public beta of Internet Explorer 9. Although this is still a beta version for the release of the first final version will have to wait another few months, we can not ignore the already significant innovations of the Web browser from Microsoft, that with this version is a definite step towards competitors Firefox, Opera and Chrome.

If the developers website so many new features will certainly be a decisive contribution to the implementation of the HTML 5 standard, the ability to encode in the standard audio, images and video without the need for any plugin, but with only the canvas and CSS for the new users are even more pronounced.

In short, before going into the description of all the news, we point out those most important, that you notice right away:

• performance greatly improved, with each page load times now comparable with Chrome and perhaps slightly higher than those of Firefox with hardware acceleration
• load times by far too low for what is to display moving images and video with the increased use of the GPU
• a much cleaner look of ‘interface user with a single bar containing the buttons back, forward, home and library at the top of a bar screen and slim down for the handling of notifications about problems with addons and updates, with the rest of the screen devoted exclusively to the content of web pages
• presence of a powerful download managerthat has nothing to envy to competing software
• ability to handle more connections were used as a web application accessible from the Windows taskbar

However, limited to a meager list of featureswould be too simplistic for the release of a browser that apparently can really aspire to re-open the game with the various Firefox, Opera and Chrome.

Minimalist interface and compact

It ‘s definitely the first thing you notice when you first start Internet Explorer 9.

To access most functions of the command bar, such as printing or zoom, just click on the Tools button. For the navigation controls (back, forward, home, URLs), there is a thin navigation bar at the head of the browser interface.

At the bottom we find a bar handling of notifications about updates to the addon, the possible presence of incompatibilities or security concerns.

As written at Microsoft and confirmed by Dean Hachamovitch, vice president for IE, “people go to the web sites for your browser. So the focus shifts all the content of web pages visited, browser interface that is given wide coverage.

Sites like web application accessible from the taskbar in Windows 7

For users accustomed to often access to certain websites, will be very useful function for adding sites allowing direct access from the taskbar present in the desktop Windows 7, where you just drag the icon from the address bar.

Internet Explorer 9 allows you to add links to websites and online applications, such as the programs were installed.

If we often use, for example, Google Calendar or GMail, we can add a shortcut in the taskbar, as if they were actually installed programs. Clicking the link would obviously go directly to the browser interface.

Powerful download manager integrated

At last, Internet Explorer is adjusting to the pace of other browsers, by integrating a download manager as it should be done.

From the dialog “Show Downloads” (which opens when you start downloading files from the Web), you can view:

• an updated list of Internet downloads
• notify you if a file could be harmful
• a button to stop the download and resume later

Improved Tabbed Browsing

Although the ‘tabbed browsing allows quick navigation between pages open in one window, you may need to see two tabbed pages at once. From now possible thanks to the Position tab, so you can also see side by side.

Enhanced page “new tab”

On the “new tab” you can now see a list of most visited sites, marked in color than the others.

Searches directly from the address bar

From the address bar you can go directly to websites by typing the URL, or search the keyword research and writing specifying the search engine to use as default.

Notification bar for reporting problems, updates and anything else

A thin bar located at the bottom of the browser interface, you can now view real-time notifications on the status update or possible problems caused by additional components and other addons. From there you can disable add-ons where are creating problems, or you can choose to continue to use them.

Improved management of add-ons

Through the appropriate management add-ons section, we can choose to enable or disable addons, toolbar and everything else we have previously installed to improve the browser. We forget that some toolbars and components can also cause problems for navigation and in this case should be turned off without thinking too much.

Significant improvement in picture viewing and video uploading pages

The display of video and moving images is now all entrusted to the GPU (the graphics chip video card), which frees the CPU significantly increasing performance while viewing, even in terms of loading speed.

With hardware acceleration, as remarked Dean Hachamovitch, the services offered by Internet Explorer 9 will be greatly improved, with faster loading pages that have nothing to envy to the services offered by Chrome, Firefox and Opera.

Full support for HTML 5 standards development

With the full support of top web development HTML 5 standard, promoted by the W3C, the developers will also benefit in terms of major development sites and web pages in general: it will no longer need to write and test code compatibility with all browsers, but just to program in HTML 5, so that all browsers that support it allow the display to the user. Already more than 70 partner sites were adequate planning their web pages in HTML 5, including the sites of CNN, BBC and Wall Street Journal … At this point we can only wait for all to use this programming standards, in developing their websites .

In conclusion: as the web has reacted to the event IE9?

Needless to say … After the presentation of IE9 in San Francisco, the many voices of the Web have become a chorus, unanimous in stressing the progress made by Microsoft with this new version.
We report the costs of various words and characters known analysts in the field, about 9 Internet Explorer.

Giorgio Sardo, Microsoft employee, on corriere.it:
“They were very intense months of work and hectic both done internally Explorer team, which made together as partners who have achieved results that are very satisfied.”

Gartner analyst Ray Valdesm:
“A great browser, much improved over previous versions, which surely will not lead users who already use IE to look for other solutions, but that will hardly bring users of other competitors to shift their attention to this new product from Microsoft.”

Preston Gralla of Computerworld U.S. highlights instead as with Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft will recover on track, referring back to other browsers and identifies the improvement in speed and performance of the two main reasons why we strongly reopen the browser wars.

The beta IE9 is available in 33 languages and is compatible with Windows Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2. Windows XP is not supported, for what many people who use it have no chance to try the excellent performance of the new version of IE.

We leave you with some useful references:

• Video presentation of Internet Explorer 9 Beta
• Guide and presentation in PDF (English)
• Download Internet Explorer 9 Beta

Also expect you to try and bring us back to warm your feelings in the comments!