UPDATED 12:47 EDT / SEPTEMBER 15 2010

Early Reviews of IE9: It’s Pretty, Very Pretty

Internet Explorer has become the much maligned whipping-child of the Internet browser wars, even if they still hold a majority of the market due to its entanglement with the Windows OS. Their most recent update, IE9, has been turning some heads. Especially for Edward Baig over at USA Today who gives it a glowing review in his aptly named article, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 a huge step forward:

Based on my tests on an HP Envy laptop, IE9 is refreshing software I strongly recommend. But there is one major caveat: You’ll need a PC with Windows 7 to exploit it to the max. For example, you can “pin” a site to the Windows taskbar (the strip of icons parked at the bottom of your PC screen) so you can open the page without first launching the browser. IE9 also works on Windows Vista computers but with fewer features. Moreover, by making IE9 incompatible with Windows XP computers, Microsoft is leaving behind the millions of folks who still use those machines…

With the adoption of Windows 7 still a little bit iffy, due to all the grumblings about Windows Vista, it might be a while for many consumers to fully appreciate offerings like IE9. Including me. Especially because, like those millions mentioned in the article, I still run Windows XP. Therefore, while I’ve gotten a preview of IE9 myself on other computers, I will probably not be running it personally soon—if ever.

While IE9 is gorgeous and does a lot to forward web technology, Microsoft and IE’s biggest problems have always been security. And if their new products don’t update and continually update past products that they’ve left behind to obsolesce in their corporate rush forward, but without acknowledging the huge market they’re leaving there.

Where Microsoft is now leading the charge with IE9 is in flexing the muscle inside today’s PCs. Microsoft claims today’s sites and browsers take advantage of just 10% of a PC’s actual capabilities. IE9 taps the other 90%. Among other technologies, Microsoft is throwing its weight behind HTML5, an increasingly popular tech standard developers rely on for flashy Web content.

HTML5 is an extremely important upgrade for all web browsers. But the review stops there with commenting on IE9’s rendering and Internet technologies and leaps directly into the user interface, and only the user interface.

Looks like IE9 will upgrade their tabbed interface to become more like Google Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox, allowing tear-away and movable tabs. They’re also adopting a single-address bar a lot like Chrome which allows both searches and web pages to be submitted into the location bar. They’re cutting down notifications, beefing up visibility, and improving graphics.

It’s a fairly solid hands-on review for consumers, but if you’re looking for a technology review you’ll have to wait.


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