Microsoft has just passed an important milestone on the road to shipping Internet Explorer 9, releasing a third Platform Preview for download by the public today.
This preview adds the most eagerly awaited HTML5 features to the IE9 engine, including support for the Canvas element and both audio and video tags. Based on test results I’ve seen, there are also significant performance improvements and a big jump in IE9’s score on the controversial Acid3 test page (although it still falls short of a perfect score). Like its two predecessors, this release contains only the most rudimentary user interface, allowing Microsoft to keep the dialog with developers focused on performance, standards compliance, and support for new HTML5 features.
