Over at Technologizer, Harry McCracken took a look at the first beta of Internet Explorer today, and his opinions may surprise you. He believes that IE9 has finally caught up with the competition in most respects, and in some ways it has surpassed it. Among the highlights:
- In testing, the IE9 beta blows through animation-rich HTML5 that some other browsers can barely run at all;
- Like in Chrome, the address bar also doubles as a search field;
- The Address Bar shares space with tabs, and shrinks to free up space as tabs are opened;
- IE9 has tight integration with Windows 7 (for example, tabs can be pinned to the Taskbar).
Head on over to Technologizer for a thorough rundown, including a look at how Microsoft seems to be cautious about extensions. If you’re brave, you can also go get the beta.
Is there any chance you’d ever switch to Internet Explorer 9 when it is out of beta?
Internet Explorer 9: Microsoft’s Browser Gets Back in the Game [Technologizer]
Tony says:
pssssssshhh! Everyone is just copying Chrome these days. They are merely improving upon innovations set by Chrome without doing anything new. Whoopie! Web standards they cry. About time.
September 15, 2010 — 9:03 pm
Bobby Travis says:
I agree with you, Tony — but the world is better for it. If Microsoft can finally get in with everyone else as opposed to trying to rule the game by making people design around them, I’m all for it. Makes web designers lose less hair.
That said, I think that they had best jump fully into the extensions game if they want to compete. I am not likely to abandon Chrome without my extensions — unless IE9 is so blazingly fast that it makes Chrome look like it’s at a standstill.
September 15, 2010 — 11:03 pm
Evan Kline says:
It does look like many people are copying Chrome (although Firefox and Opera could claim the same about many of their features). The one side benefit, as Bobby suggests, is that Microsoft seems to be finally getting in line with web standards. I’ve already had to drop some cash to get this site’s customizations to work right with IE7. It will be nice when old browsers are so rare that developers and designers can design a site for one standard.
September 16, 2010 — 10:00 am
Tony says:
Talk about browser hopping these days, eh? Before, it was always clear which browser anyone should use. Now, every browser has its strong points and weaknesses.
September 17, 2010 — 3:17 am
Anthony Russo says:
I like the look of IE9 and look what Microsoft has done with Windows 7. I definitely will give it a run through, but would be hard pressed to replace Chrome, then again, I thought that about Firefox before Chrome came out.
Anthony
September 16, 2010 — 12:31 am
Daryl Griffiths says:
I agree with you Anthony.
I guess Mozilla are going to be doubley-worried if IE9 can turn IE around as Windows7 did Windows.
Don’t know if my reading of browser choice is right, but as I see it, it is “techy” users who switched from IE to FF in the first place and it’s mostly the same type of users now switching from FF to Chrome.
IE have lost some users to Chrome as well, no doubt.
However, in my experience most “home” users won’t change from IE no matter how ugly, slow and unsecure it may be, for the reason that it is a Microsoft product built in to Windows and therefore: why change?
There is a very strong feeling in business-IT that IE is also the only option for lots of pretty sound reasons, including but not limited to legacy software built to use the IE browser.
If, therefore, IE9 can be made better I am all for it if it will considerably simplify my life as the “go-to” guy at home and the IT guy at work!
September 16, 2010 — 5:48 am
Evan Kline says:
I think I’m in minority among techies as far as switching to Chrome. I use it, but Firefox is still my main browser. The only place that I notice Chrome’s so-called speed improvement is on my netbook, which is lower powered. On my other machines, I can’t notice a difference in speed between Chrome and Firefox.
September 16, 2010 — 10:02 am
Daryl Griffiths says:
Evan – I will believe it when I see it*!!!
(*it = the actual release product!)
September 16, 2010 — 5:50 am
Evan Kline says:
Good point – at this early stage, anything can change.
September 16, 2010 — 10:03 am
Fresno Divorce Attorney says:
IE9 has some pretty massive steps forward, but unfortunately that doesn’t help us much until people finally stop using the 10 year old IE6
September 16, 2010 — 2:13 pm
Evan Kline says:
Yep, that is pretty scary. I know someone who worked for a Fortune 500 company, and they were still using IE6 because they had legacy software that only worked with IE6. I’d hesitate to even allow an IE6 machine on my network.
September 16, 2010 — 3:01 pm
Kosmo @ The Soap Boxers says:
Dude, we’ve been on IE7 for at least a year now. :)
Some large companies have a massive internal user base, coupled with a ton of internal web apps peforming a lot of mission-critical tasks … when means massive amounts of testing when the browser changes.
Honestly, I couldn’t even guess how many web apps exist in my company. Hundreds, at least.
September 17, 2010 — 9:16 am
Evan Kline says:
Actually, that someone wasn’t you, but now that you mention it, I remember that you were on IE6 at one point. I understand why companies use it, but it is still frightening.
September 17, 2010 — 11:31 am