Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta Revealed
The latest version of Explorer, now available in public beta, is the company's attempt to get back into the web browser race and its success will determine if users look to Microsoft or elsewhere for their window to the web. Peek in on the beta launch event and the new features in this slideshow.
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While journalists and Microsoft partners waited to enter the IE9 keynote area, we were entertained thus. The band was actually quite good.
Microsoft on Wednesday announced the availability of the Windows Internet Explorer 9 Beta, the company's attempt to get back into the web browser race for real. In some respects, IE9 puts Microsoft in the lead, thanks to its support for hardware accelerated HTML5 graphics. It's a lead that won't last: Both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome will have hardware acceleration in mainstream releases before too long.
In fact, Mozilla's Aza Dotzler says that Firefox uses the same Windows APIs for its hardware acceleration and that Firefox accelerates Windows XP, which IE9 doesn't do since it doesn't run on Windows XP. "We are faster and we were first," declared Dotzler last week.
IE9 may not settle the debate about which browser is better but it does put Microsoft back in the race. After years of steadily losing browser market share, Windows 7 and IE9 have proven that Microsoft can still compete.
Dean Hachamovitch, corporate VP at Microsoft, argues that the focus should be on the website rather than the web browser. That makes sense in a way, but Microsoft itself has clearly spent a lot of time focused on IE9. And as much as Microsoft might wish that users ignore the browser and think only of Windows, IE9 is sure to be compared to Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
What matters in the end is whether Windows users look to Microsoft or elsewhere for their window to the web.
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Ordinary drumming won't do to introduce an extraordinary web browser.
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Event attendees head up the stairs to the area where Microsoft corporate VP Dean Hachamovitch will introduce IE9. The fellow in the top left-hand corner of the picture demonstrates the axe axiom: More guitar is better guitar.
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Around 200 people, minus the legion of Microsoft PR and product managers, attended the IE9 launch. A few had the temerity to bring MacBook Pros, with their glowing Apple logos. There was even someone using an iPad to do his reporting.
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Microsoft had a partner willing to endorse IE9 for every letter of the alphabet. Perhaps coincidentally, Google Instant Search has also led to the creation of a Google search term alphabet.
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Web games plus IE9 hardware acceleration equals super-fast graphics and a better online experience.
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This screen shot shows IE9's frame rate when rendering multiple moving fish. Even at up around 250 fish, it can get 60 fps. Try this simulation with other browsers (at least until they implement hardware acceleration) and they won't perform as well.
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Hardware acceleration isn't just about gaming. It's about the user experience and it can help make mundane tasks like scrolling through CD cover art much more enjoyable.
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This is an example of how IE9's Pinned Sites feature works. It's simply a tab-turned-bookmark in the Windows task bar.
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This is another example of a Pinned Site, with a Jump List menu. Notice how the taskbar icon expands to provide links to specific areas inside the Livestrong site. That's likely to mean less search and more direct navigation, at least for sites that created Pinned Site menus.
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Microsoft wants the de-emphasize the web browser and its efforts to do that can be seen on this website: The image takes up almost all of the browser window pane and the controls that can be seen are small and unobtrusive.
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Microsoft describes IE9 as a browser that uses the whole PC and puts sites at the center of the experience. What it means by that is that it's moving browser functions, like bookmarking, into Windows. As can be seen here, Microsoft has made Pinned Sites in the user's task bar more important than the user's chosen home page.
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IE9 allows the user to tear tabs out of the main browser window to become their own window, and to easily reunite them.
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For IE9, less is more. Note the absence of the dedicate search box that was present in IE8. Like Chrome and Firefox, IE9 offers a One Box, which combines the address bar and search input field.
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So much of Twitter is accessible from this Jump List that some users may find less reason to resort to third-party Twitter clients for tweet management.
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Microsoft and its partners put on an impressive show. The display area included dozens of PCs showing off partners' websites in IE9 and abundant hors d'oeuvres.
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IE9's Pinned Site Jump Lists can also include saved searches, making it easy to search to see whether certain flights have become more affordable.
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Some websites that have been pinned to the task bar may be programmed to include additional controls, like the Windows Media playback controls shown here.
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The demo station of one of Microsoft's partners. If you squint at the screen, the silver beads start to look like the falling code in the credits of The Matrix.
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The demo station of one of Microsoft's partners. If you squint at the screen, the silver beads start to look like the falling code in the credits of The Matrix.
FURTHER READING:
Review: IE9 May Be Best Version Yet
While journalists and Microsoft partners waited to enter the IE9 keynote area, we were entertained thus. The band was actually quite good.
Microsoft on Wednesday announced the availability of the Windows Internet Explorer 9 Beta, the company's attempt to get back into the web browser race for real. In some respects, IE9 puts Microsoft in the lead, thanks to its support for hardware accelerated HTML5 graphics. It's a lead that won't last: Both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome will have hardware acceleration in mainstream releases before too long.
In fact, Mozilla's Aza Dotzler says that Firefox uses the same Windows APIs for its hardware acceleration and that Firefox accelerates Windows XP, which IE9 doesn't do since it doesn't run on Windows XP. "We are faster and we were first," declared Dotzler last week.
IE9 may not settle the debate about which browser is better but it does put Microsoft back in the race. After years of steadily losing browser market share, Windows 7 and IE9 have proven that Microsoft can still compete.
Dean Hachamovitch, corporate VP at Microsoft, argues that the focus should be on the website rather than the web browser. That makes sense in a way, but Microsoft itself has clearly spent a lot of time focused on IE9. And as much as Microsoft might wish that users ignore the browser and think only of Windows, IE9 is sure to be compared to Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
What matters in the end is whether Windows users look to Microsoft or elsewhere for their window to the web.
FURTHER READING: Review: IE9 May Be Best Version Yet Can IE9 Halt Explorer's Decline? Microsoft Unleashes Windows Internet Explorer 9 Beta
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