The Internet Explorer team just as expected released the fourth platform preview of the upcoming Internet Explorer 9 browser. The preview still offers no “real” user interface, but lots of progress has been made under the hood.
Hardware accelerating everything that is rendered on the user’s PC seems to have been one of the main goals in the development. The developers have added additional hardware accelerated elements into IE9, including fully hardware accelerated HTML5. This basically means that Internet Explorer 9 uses hardware acceleration whenever possible.
That’s currently a contrast to other web browsers, who have either announced hardware acceleration for specific elements or techniques only or not at all. While hardware acceleration will make a difference in the future, it is right now not (that) beneficial on standard websites.
Microsoft has created several demonstrations to showcase how hardware acceleration increases the performance of the web browser.
Demos like Hamster Dance Revolution or Psychedelic browsing showcase the power of hardware acceleration.
internet explorer 9
Then again, those examples are demonstrations, and it remains to be seen how hardware acceleration impacts the performance on text centric websites. Probably not that much today, but a lot in the coming years.
Microsoft introduces a new JavaScript integration model in Internet Explorer 9. The Internet Explorer 9 developers have moved the new JavaScript engine inside the browser. This, according to Microsoft, improves “the performance of real world websites significantly”.
internet explorer 9 javascript
Speed and performance has been a huge issue in Internet Explorer 8 and previous versions. Internet Explorer 9 made great progress speed wise, surpassing the performance of some web browsers, and closing in on the fastest browsers in the field.
ie9 speed
The Acid3 test is another test that is used to test a web browsers standard compliance. The fourth platform preview manages to score 95 of 100, an additional 12 points gain from the last platform preview. It is likely that Internet Explorer 9 will score 100/100 when it comes out.
Websites open fast in Internet Explorer, that’s great progress especially for users who still work with older versions of the browser. IE9 performs well and if everything goes as planned will be a force to recon with once it is released as a beta with user interface, and final version. Is it likely that Firefox, Chrome or Opera users will switch back to IE9 when it is released? Some may do so, but it is unlikely that the majority will do, considering that speed is just one of the factors relevant to web users.
Interested users can download the latest platform preview of Internet Explorer 9 from the test drive website. The site links to the browser demonstrations as well. Additional information about this release are available at the Internet Explorer blog.
Related Articles:
Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 7 ReleasedInternet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 3 Download Available
Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 4 Available
Internet Explorer Platform Preview 2 Download
Internet Explorer 10 Preview 5 Released
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Wow! but I won’t switch back from Opera 10.6! I’m too addicted to it’s built in features and widgets!
Well, Opera 10.6 widgets is my real problem, I want just simple browser with great viewable area for webpage like Chrome decent design, whereas Mozilla takes many years to load and doesn`t like before it used too. Chrome on the other hand has tonnes of problem, whenever I visit some PHP based site (forums), it start downloading weird files, also chrome has many issues, Chrome team big focus is security not user satisfaction.