IE9 Beta - to be Launched Sept 15

[tedster]

Microsoft will be launching the completely revamped Internet Explorer 9 at an event in San Francisco on September 15, but will it be enough to turn the tide in the war for web browser supremacy?

...the platform previews tout the browser’s hardware acceleration capability, which we have to say is nothing short of impressive — check out the video below to see what we mean.

[mashable.com...]

Definitely do check out the video demo [youtube.com]. Hardware acceleration indeed!

[txbakers]

hope it's better and less buggy than IE 8!

That "mode" setting is a royal pain.

Why can't they get it right?

And why can't Google Chrome add the Page Setup to remove headers/footers so we can dump IE altogether?

[incrediBILL]

Wow!

Watched a few of the IE9 videos, it flies.

Certainly a game changer in overall performance.

I'm running on a highly accelerated machine already and I'm not used to things being slow in the first place, but I'm sure that kind of boost will be noticeable.

[willybfriendly]

Reading the reviews on youtube, MS may have already lost the mindshare battle.

[incrediBILL]

You can't judge the mind share of the average user based on the negative types that always jump up and down in little feeding frenzies on places like Youtube.

That would be like trying to understand politics by listening to the biased talking heads on TV.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Lol, one day they are issuing 30+ security updates and the next they are saying they have a new browser. Pretty funny but hardly game changing, unless they finally get security right which I won't hold my breath for. Fool me once...

[graeme_p]

Webkit and Gecko are getting hardware acceleration as well - I think its due is FF 3.7 so MS might not even be the first to get it out of the gate.

[Sylver]

Let's not forget that the demo is probably designed to play on the strength of IE9 and that it might not matter too much for the actual browsing experience.

Either way, it's good news for us as users and web devs. The further away we get from IE6 and it's abominations, the better it is.

[iambic9]

Cool! So the big thing about IE9 is that it can render pages – broken – faster than its predecessors, and is only just starting to support the standards everyone else adopted years ago.

but will it be enough to turn the tide in the war for web browser supremacy?

Nope.

[koan]

Can we drop support for IE 6 now?

Please?

Come on!

[ByronM]

Preview 4 is pretty amazing performance wise. great to see beta coming soon!

[ergophobe]

Did you see the 4-browser shootout? Chrome is far and away the slowest. Opera does okay. IE9 is super fast... but Firefox is 5% super faster.

[youtube.com...]

But, can someone explain why I really care about fishes on the screen?

[Hugene]

I have no words to describe how tired I am of the IE product. Die already.

I must at least add some intelligent fluff to my post: after all these years I still test on IE because my stats still show that IE is the most used browser for accessing my site. But I don't test on many versions anymore, I just test on the latest I have on the machine I am on. Obviously, this is not valid advice for large websites, which have to support users with many different browsers.

Still, the way I see it is if we keep supporting this old gibberish, people will have less incentives to switch over.

[ByronM]

Still, the way I see it is if we keep supporting this old gibberish, people will have less incentives to switch over.

I suggest you try the preview browsers and follow the IE developer blog or wait for the beta. IE is a new beast and i hope they stick it out for the long run. THe last thing i want is another single giant becoming the defacto. Webkit isn't magic beans :)

[incrediBILL]

IE is a new beast and i hope they stick it out for the long run

Stick it out?

A new Windows PC without a browser is a dead box, does nothing online which is where everyone wants to be, and MS is hardly going to hand over control of their OS dominance to webkit. More likely scenario would be MS opening up the kimono and attempt to destroy webkit by releasing their own browser internals.

Once they fully lose control of the browser then MS Office is the only thing holding customers to the Windows platform and Open Office is making nice inroads there as well, I'm doing my part ;)

[iambic9]

FPS = Fishes Per Second ; )

They're measuring IE9 performance with Fish?

That's hilarious! (I only just decided to watch the vid) In contrast, Apple went with "Look how well we can render HTML5 + CSS3" and MentalSoft went with look how many Fish we can do over Chrome.

I mean I get it, more fish shwimming about happily == we doing stuff quicker, but still... I'm voting for accuracy and standards over more fish.

Let me know when those fish are plaiced entirely using Javascript, standards compliant HTML5, CSS3 and without any proprietary BS markup or plugins. That'll be news.

[J_RaD]

A new Windows PC without a browser is a dead box, does nothing online which is where everyone wants to be, and MS is hardly going to hand over control of their OS dominance to webkit. More likely scenario would be MS opening up the kimono and attempt to destroy webkit by releasing their own browser internals.

Once they fully lose control of the browser then MS Office is the only thing holding customers to the Windows platform and Open Office is making nice inroads there as well, I'm doing my part ;)

I do pleny of things online that don't require the use of a browser.

IM (app)
games(app)
video(app)
email(app)
voip(app)
music(app)

the browser is just another tool in that list, and saying the only thing holding customers to windows is office really sounds like you've been drinking the goog chrome kool-aid in the since they think people just want to turn their computer open with nothing more then a browser.

you watch how things shake up when microsoft opens the windows app store and people begin doing desktop app dev en masse the way they people are doing iphone apps. PLUS applications that have a windows mobile versions that ties to the desktop version.

I for one am rooting for the death of clunky crappy web apps, desktops apps are a much cleaner richer experiance

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Can we drop support for IE 6 now?

Please?

Come on!

No, if we did that our data couldn't be assimilated and monitored by the powers that be through back doors as easily. That IE6 was free of "secret monitoring" compared to today's browsers (and ipads, amazon even deleted customer books with their secret access!).

Less features has its advantages. Hackers eventually sniff out back doors so we're doomed for repeated updates because backdoors exist.

[Seb7]

mm.. some major work actually going on with IE.

If IE can become fully CSS3, HTML5 compliant and fast (without bugs), why wouldnt it win back user support?

[graeme_p]

But I don't test on many versions anymore, I just test on the latest I have on the machine I am on

You should test on the oldest - that is what is most likely to give you problems.

I have a Win XP VM on my Linux laptop just for IE6.

you watch how things shake up when microsoft opens the windows app store and people begin doing desktop app dev en masse the way they people are doing iphone apps.

I doubt it, desktop apps are a mature market, smart phone apps are not. The opportunities are not the same. I doubt a Windows App Store will make any difference - there are already plenty of places you can download from.

Of course it will make installation more convenient: its nice to see Windows finally get a feature that Linux has had for a decade (except for two typical MS "improvements": more central control and you have to pay for it.)

[ByronM]

A new Windows PC without a browser is a dead box, does nothing online which is where everyone wants to be, and MS is hardly going to hand over control of their OS dominance to webkit. More likely scenario would be MS opening up the kimono and attempt to destroy webkit by releasing their own browser internals.

By sticking it out, i meant actually pushing forward and competing again, not just sitting on their laurals.

Once they fully lose control of the browser then MS Office is the only thing holding customers to the Windows platform and Open Office is making nice inroads there as well, I'm doing my part ;)

Open Office is dead..

more people use google apps than open office so that probably says more for what the future of office apps is.

[ByronM]

If IE can become fully CSS3, HTML5 compliant and fast (without bugs), why wouldnt it win back user support?

It is CSS3/Html5 compliant in its current form.. update 4 shows how far they have progressed, hoping the beta release has 100% compliance on tests and works out the last of the kinks.

I dunno how some people seem to think IE9 is a bad thing.. oh well. To each their own!

[ByronM]

Anyone have a link for the beta? not seeing it on connect yet either.

[J_RaD]

I like how they are demoing a DESKTOP COMPUTER with SLI video cards and 3 monitors, if we could just ever everyone using such hardware!

[J_RaD]

Of course it will make installation more convenient: its nice to see Windows finally get a feature that Linux has had for a decade (except for two typical MS "improvements": more central control and you have to pay for it.)

think steam + app store.

if my computer crashes today I know i can download all my games from steam again with all save data and settings, steam also updates each game to make sure it will run correctly on your system.