Reviewers point to a few other quirks but the upgrade has been met with rave reviews. Not that you’d want to: the 64bit did poorly in speed tests. IE9 comes in 32bit and 64bit versions, but if you have a 64bit computer it won’t run the 64bit version as the default - you need to select it manually. This new technology is important because websites are using more complex graphics, videos are still gaining in popularity and cloud-based software is hot-hot-hot. IE9 beat Firefox 4, Opera and the new Google Chrome 10 in many tests (but not all), thanks to a new JavaScript engine and “hardware-accelerated text, video and graphics.” By using your computer’s own graphic processing unit, IE9 boosts processing speeds. IE9’s best new-and-better feature? Speed! Leapfrog Labs recommends that users running Windows 7 and Vista update to IE9 now so you can take advantage of new features that will make your online life easier (sorry, XP users, this upgrade is not for you). Pros: Very clean UI ability to pin websites to the taskbar, safe browsing, standards-focusedĬons: Slow install, forces a reboot, the minimalist layout might not be to everyone's taste.If you use Internet Explorer (IE) and think it’s a bit clunky, you’ve clearly not updated to the newly released IE9 - so hop to it! It could mean that downloading a new browser is no longer the first thing you do with a new computer. For now, this is a good beta: it's stable, clean and fast and integrates well with the operating system. However, you can't use that to block ads, and at present there isn't a dedicated ad-blocking add-on, which might be a dealbreaker for some.Īs more websites build content that takes advantage of IE9, the benefits of it will become clearer. You can block elements of web pages – such as those that gather browsing metrics, though you have to do so on a site-by-site basis. Privacy is also at the fore in this version of IE. Using the same engine as its Security Essentials antimalware package, the browser checks websites and downloads and warns you if an app you're downloading isn't signed or a site is dodgy. Under the hood, Microsoft says it's safer than other browsers. Developers can code the jumplist –the list of options that pops out from a button on the taskbar when you right-click it - making websites feel even more like apps. You can pin websites as apps in your taskbarĪnd if you drag the favicon from the IE9 box down to your taskbar, you can launch the site direct from that – just like an app, though how much use I'll make of that remains to be seen as those buttons could fill up the taskbar rather quickly. In fact, what this does is in effect turn websites into apps: the IE9-optimised version of, for example, which looks rather like the iPad bookshelf app, means you can pick books off the shelves, flip through them and order them via a whizzy, interactive process. The whole thing feels fast - the browser is focused on standards and compliance, which makes sites built in HTML5 a pleasure to use. Do a side by side test with your current choice of browser and IE9 of the FishIE Tank at and see the difference hardware acceleration makes to rendering the fish. Instead of calling on your CPU for processing, IE9 diverts the grunt work to your graphics processing unit (GPU), which means that graphics can be rich and fast. No XP, and certainly no other operating systems.īut the point is that it's designed to take advantage of modern hardware. Oh, and there's the rub: this is only for users of recent Microsoft operating systems: Vista SP2 and Windows 7. Perhaps a little too much on a wide, high-res screen as many websites are designed as though they're going to fit on a sheet of A4 paper, though generally the sense is of the browser fading into the background and putting the website centre stage.Ĭustomisation freaks will feel bereft as there's no skinning – instead the back button adopts the underlying style sheet of the website you're visiting, and the bar at the top renders in Aero glass. What you get instead of toolbars, add-ons, buttons and sidebars is just acres of screen real estate. Next to that are tabs to the far right of the screen are discreet icons for your home page, your favourites (not everyone is going to like that being moved to the other side of the screen) and your tools. The default is of course Bing, but you can change that. It's very minimalist: the box is both the address bar and the search box. However, once up and running, what's immediately obvious is its pared-down look.
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