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  Internet Explorer 9 RC Review

  
  

  Sleeker, faster and more secure but still not as good as rivals

  Great minimalistic design, fast performance, hardware acceleration support, unified address/search bar works very well

  Doesn't play nice with certain websites, too few add-ons compared to rival browsers, underwhelming performance in benchmarks, smaller fonts tend to look fuzzy, minor annoyances abound

  Expert Rating :

  

Expert Review

Internet Explorer has had a long and successful journey. Despite being outclassed by other browsers in almost every aspect it continues to dominate the browser market. It is able to do this simply because it was being shipped by default along with the most popular operating system in the world.

It would be wrong to say that Microsoft has been sitting on its laurels and doing nothing about improving their browser and bringing it up to speed with other browsers and more importantly, web standards. However, it seemed they either did not care much about the browser or the people using it, as the last couple of updates have mostly been cosmetic with nothing major been done with respect to performance. For those enlightened few, Internet Explorer has always been the browser used to download other, better browsers when you first buy your computer or re-install Windows.

But with Internet Explorer 9, things have always seemed different from the start. It seems that the software giant has finally woken up and has decided to do something significant about its browser. Whether it was the slowly decreasing market share or the fact that it finally got fed up of all the IE jokes, but Microsoft is finally taking significant steps in making this next version of their web browser not just better than the one that came before it, but also better than what the others have to offer.

After a series of developer previews and a beta, Microsoft recently released the release candidate of Internet Explorer 9. So we decided to take it for a spin and see just how much better is this new version and more importantly, if it is on par with what Mozilla, Google, Apple and Opera has to offer.


User Interface

Microsoft claims that Internet Explorer 9 has the least amount of UI chrome of any web browser out there and they really do deliver on that front. Internet Explorer 9 by far has the slickest and most minimalistic interface of any web browser we have seen. It is because of a combination of several UI changes that were first demonstrated by Google Chrome. It gets rid of the menu bar altogether and instead places the menu options in a concentrated menu on the right.

 

Internet Explorer 9, however, goes one step ahead of Chrome and places the tab bar in the same row as the address/search bar, thus saving an extra row. This does have its disadvantages, which are quickly apparent when the tabs start piling on but those who indulge only in light browsing won't really be bothered by them.

One good thing about the release candidate is that it allows you to place the tabs in a separate row below the address bar. We noticed that while the browser UI doesn't look nearly as attractive once you do that, it feels less cramped if you happen to have a lot of tabs open all the time.

 

Microsoft has also removed the status bar from the bottom, although it can be enabled from the menu. Instead you get a floating status bar like the one in Chrome, the displays the URL when you hover over a link.

The new tab page in Internet Explorer 9 now shows the most visited sites, just like in Chrome and Safari. Unfortunately, you cannot pin sites the way you can in either of the browser nor can you add your own sites the way you can in Opera. You can hide the sites but then you get ten empty windows - which looks weird. There is a suggested sites feature which, when enabled, shows you sites that you might like based on your browsing history. You can also reopen last session instantly or activate the InPrivate browsing mode, which first debuted with Internet Explorer 8.

Unfortunately, even though the tab page is pretty good, you cannot set it appear when you start the browser. For some odd reason, the first page can only be the homepage, which you can leave blank if you like. It would be nice to have the most visited sites when you start the browser.

 

Above the shiny exterior of the new Internet Explorer 9, if you dig down to the settings menu, you would notice that it has hardly changed since Internet Explorer 6. There isn't anything terribly wrong with it, but since they have changed every other aspect of the UI, a new settings menu would have been welcome as well. Even the right control menu is the same, which still has the "Open" on top, which is unnecessary as you could easily just left click the link instead of right clicking and then selecting Open.

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