Internet Explorer has not been known for being a good browser since the mess that Internet Explorer 6 which was included with Windows XP turned out to be. I think that is about to change. Microsoft has released the beta version of Windows Internet Explorer 9 and just like the first Windows 7 beta that was released in January 2009; this first beta of Internet Explorer 9 feels like a nearly finished, well-polished product. Also like Windows 7, the product was based on a few basic goals and the result is a program which is cleaner, faster and smarter than previous versions. This should only get better throughout the next 6 months before the final product is released in early 2011. This is what the Internet Explorer 9 beta looks like on Windows 7 at the moment. Please note that Internet Explorer 9 will only work on Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 or later and Windows 7. It cannot work on Windows XP (as will all future Microsoft software, Windows XP is a dead operating system).
The 3 main areas that Microsoft wanted to focus on during the development of IE9 were performance, web standards and hardware acceleration. Microsoft has managed to achieve most of this in the first beta of Internet Explorer 9. It is faster to load than previous versions and appears to load pages at a similar speed to Chrome or Firefox. It also is following web standards much better than previous versions. Internet Explorer 8 managed to score 20/100 on the Acid3 test but the Internet Explorer 9 beta manages to score 95/100 with a goal to reach 100/100 by the final release.
Internet Explorer 9 also uses your GPU (graphics card) instead of the CPU to render web pages, which means that the CPU can be used for other tasks which means you get better performance. The other browsers such as Firefox and Chrome are also using partial hardware acceleration to render web pages, but Internet Explorer 9 uses full hardware acceleration to render the entire webpage.
Internet Explorer 9 also brings along a massive overhaul of the User Interface. This overhaul has included cleaning up and simplifying the cluttered interface that Internet Explorer 8 shipped with. Internet Explorer 8 by default shipped with a title bar showing the title of the page and the words Windows Internet Explorer plus the minimize, maximise and close buttons, a row below that which included the Back & Forward buttons, Address box, Refresh & Stop buttons and a Search box, below that a favourites row which included the favourites button, an ‘add page to favourites bar’ button and then links to favourite pages that the user had chosen to add to the favourites bar, and finally below that the tabs the user had open & the command bar which included the Home, RSS, Send Mail, Print, Page, Safety, Tools and Help commands, plus any additional buttons that add-ons may have added there. That was a large number of user interface elements to have at the top of the screen taking up 4 rows (3 if you collapsed the favourites bar as shown below), plus the status bar at the bottom. Internet Explorer 9 cuts down the number of elements at the top of the screen to 7 basic items all in one row. The title bar text has been removed since the title of the page is displayed in the tab anyway and because Microsoft doesn’t want you to concentrate on the fact you’re using Internet Explorer, rather on the content the browser is showing (I’ll deal with this concept later on). So the top of the browser contains the Back & Forwards buttons, a combined Address and Search box called the ‘One Box’, the Compatibility View, Refresh and Stop buttons, then the open tabs and finally on the right the Home, Favourites and Tools buttons, as well as the Minimize, Maximise and Close buttons. That’s it; the rest of the browser is for displaying the content of the web page, because that’s what you’re ultimately there for. You can turn all of the old bars back on if you wish (they’re not gone forever), but for the most part, there isn’t any reason to. I personally believe it would be a good idea if Microsoft added the Print button next to the Home & Favourites buttons because having to find the Print command in the Tools menu is going to confuse many users.
Internet Explorer 9 also changes the way the notification bar appears and works. Since Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP Service Pack 2, when a webpage tries to automatically download a file or install an ActiveX control, a thin yellow bar just below the address bar has appeared telling the user what is happening and clicking that bar would allow the user to select what they would like to do. In Internet Explorer 9, this bar has been moved to the bottom and now has a different look, but also shares the same appearance as the new Download Manager that has finally been added to Internet Explorer 9. When you download a file, the new information bar appears at the bottom allowing you to Run, Save or Cancel the download (which is what a dialog box would have asked in Internet Explorer 8), and then the progress is displayed in that same bar, but also shown in the new Download Manager.
If you use Windows Vista, then this is about it for you in terms of new features, but Windows 7 users get many more really thought through new features revolving around the new Superbar (Taskbar) that ships in Windows 7. Firstly, you can now pin websites to the Superbar as if they were programs on your computer. So if you use Facebook often, then you can drag Facebook down to your Superbar and it will appear as an icon down there. When you that link, it will open the website, and the website’s icon will be displayed next to the Back button (and that icon acts as the home button delivering you back to that site, not your usual homepage) and the Back & Forwards buttons will be coloured to match the site.
What is the really clever part is though, is how Microsoft wants these special web site links to work like normal programs you have installed on the machine. So these links can have customised Jump Lists, Notification Overlays and thumbnail controls just like applications such as Windows Media Player and Windows Live Messenger have. If you right click the pinned Facebook icon, you get a list of customised tasks that Facebook has chosen to put there, and can change at any time they like, because the icon gets updates when it visits the website the link is for.
The bit that makes it act more like a real application is the ability for the webpage to send notifications that cause an overlay to appear on the program’s icon. Windows Live Messenger is able to do this when it shows you your status with a green, orange, red or grey square over its icon when you use it, but now a webpage can also use this feature. Here’s an example of Facebook posting a red star over its icon when a new notification is received.
There is a bigger philosophy around all the changes made to Internet Explorer in this version and they all flow around this concept: The browser needs to get out of the way so that the content shines through and becomes the most important part. The simplification of the controls at the top is an example of this. The ability to pin websites to your taskbar but also add the functionality that allows websites to feel like applications installed on your computer is so that in the future, you won’t be thinking, this is a web app so I need to launch Internet Explorer and then navigate to the web app, but that the web app is just another program I use and that the idea of using a ‘web browser’ is forgotten. That is why Microsoft probably removed the words ‘Windows Internet Explorer’ from the title bar of this version of the browser – they didn’t want people to think, I’m using Internet Explorer, but that – I’m just using a web browser to get to Facebook or simply, I’m using Facebook. It's also probably why they turned most of the Internet Explorer dialogs into information bars at the bottom of the screen, so they didn't interrupt the browsing session by forcing the user to answer questions. Any website can use the new Pinned Icons, Jump List and Thumbnail Preview functionality if the basic code is added to the website and if you’re using Internet Explorer 9 to read this, then try it now – drag the Andrew Tech Help tab down to your Windows 7 Superbar and pin it there and then right click the icon and a basic Jump List should appear.
This is only a beta product though, and the final version is not expected until 2011, so there are a few issues that the browser has at the moment. The biggest issue for me is that there is no progress bar for when the page is loading, so I have absolutely no idea if a page is loading or how far it is through loading. I think Microsoft need to add a progress bar into the browser in the next beta and the best implementation would be to do the same thing they do in Windows Explorer, have the Address/Search box display the progress bar until the page is loaded and then it disappears. The other issue I’ve found is the rendering of some pages, but that is expected because Microsoft is still tweaking the rendering of the page to meet its goal of standards compliance by the final release. As mentioned before, I also believe there should be a more prominent Print button, and finally – the Internet Options dialog really needs a refresh and tidy up, because it hasn’t changed since Internet Explorer 5 really.
Overall the Internet Explorer 9 Beta 1 is a very stable and usable product that really has born some new life into Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer has received some deservedly bad press over the last 5 years and this is the first step to recovering its reputation as a modern and quality web browser. If Microsoft continue to improve the browser throughout the next 6 months, then the final release of Internet Explorer 9 will be a must recommend to Windows 7 users.
