Internet Explorer 9 : beta version planned for September

Internet Explorer 9 with its new functions will be available to test as a beta version in September 2010.

Microsoft has already started to talk publically about their future web browser’s engine. Available to everyone, although aimed particularly at developers, a preview of Internet Explorer 9 was also made available so that users could see under the hood via released previews. Three preliminary E9 versions have already been put online since March, with the last of these being in June.

Through these preliminary releases, we were able to see notable progress in IE9 in numerous fields. Better respect of the Web standards, an improved display score of 83/100 in the Acid3 test (20/100 for IE8), major evolutions in the handling of CSS3, HTML5 with onboard audio support (MP3 and AAC) and video (via the H.264 codec) to be able to play videos without a plug-in, Canvas support to make bitmap images more dynamic, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), hardware acceleration via Windows (Direct2D) and the GPU for graphical elements...

With their new Chakra engine which compiles JavaScript as a background task while benefitting from the multi-core architecture of processors, the preliminary version of IE9 saw spectacular improvements compared to IE8 in JavaScript execution speeds. IE8 was a fair way behind competing browsers, with IE9 now having largely made up the difference.


Beta release for September
The preliminary versions haven’t shed light on all of the new functions that will be available to the final users, with notably the new IE9 user interface yet to be revealed. For this, we will have to wait for the beta version of IE9 to be released, with Microsoft having indicated that this will be done in September 2010.

For Microsoft’s General Director Kevin Turner, IE9 will succeed IE8 at an opportune time, with the browser being labelled the "safest on the market", pointing out that IE regained market share in May and June by referencing the latest statistics released by Net Applications. In Europe though, the AT Internet Institute states otherwise, with a reduction in Internet Explorer use.

The Chinese site cnBeta has put some screen captures online of an IE9 build with a real user interface. Nothing says that this is the future IE9 beta release, especially since it is displaying poorer Acid3 results than previously announced, with the user interface appearing to closely resemble IE8. We do note a similar function to Opera’s Speed Dial which displays thumbnails of visited sites, as well as a new download manager. A more modern manager, or at least the equal of the competition, which displays the name of the file being downloaded, the address being accessed, the folders location, the remaining download time and the possibility of pausing the process.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that Internet Explorer 9 is designed for Windows Vista and 7, with it not being possible to install on Windows XP.