Thoughts on Internet Explorer 9 RC

Posted: February 13, 2011 | Author: Tonyx35 | Filed under: General Tech | Tags: Internet Explorer, MS Windows, Release Candidate, Tech, Web Browser |Leave a comment

Internet Explorer 9 (Release Candidate) is out and you get it here or here. The Installation process was straight forward. Download a small setup file that downloads the main installation files. Restart computer and wait. It’s much like any other Microsoft Windows Update process.

Initial UI settings when I first ran the browser and selected recommended settings:

Tabs are to the right of the address bar.
status bar is hidden
Menu bar is hidden

Right-clicking on an empty section of the address bar bring up a menu that will allow you to reveal the hidden items listed above. I don’t know what it is but I just like having my browser tabs on its own row in the browser. Another thing I noticed is that the Favorites/History sidebar now opens on the right side of the browser window!? This new version features a You most popular site tab, very similar to the feature in Google Chrome. It also has a built-in download manager. The old download animations and progress bar are gone. The keyboard shortcut to open the download manager is Crtl+J, as it is in Firefox and Chrome. I don’t use IE very often so I can’t really comment too much on the “speed” of the browser but, it seems to keep up with Chrome and Firefox.

Be aware of the ActiveX filtering setting found under Safety or Menu bar>Tools, since it will disable Adobe flash playback in the Browser (while enabled).

Microsoft gives us Hardware accelartion support, Download manager, a UI tweak, HTML 5 support and better integration with Windows 7. I dare to say that this version was inspired by both of its compettors. Appears to be stable enough. No crashes or site compatibilty issues to note.