Microsoft today released the final version of its Internet Explorer 9 web browser, which has been available in Beta form for the past six months (accruing more than 40 million downloads in that time). Coming almost exactly two years after its predecessor IE8, IE9, now dubbed "Windows Internet Explorer 9", is touted as being the only fully hardware-accelerated HTML5 browser, promising to offer a "faster, richer and more immersive web experience".
Microsoft is hoping the new features will be enough to stem the slow but steady stream of browser users defecting to Google's Chrome, which has rocketed to a strong third position in the market (behind IE and Firefox) in just two and a half years (and which received a comprehensive update itself just one week ago).
Microsoft is presenting IE9 as the most standards-compliant browser it has ever released, with a strong focus on open HTML5 compatibility from the outset. It's also designed to offer a minimalist UI, so as not to get in the way of the user experience. As Microsoft puts it, "ideally, browsers melt into the background and allow websites to come forward and shine".
Microsoft is also emphasising with its new release the tight integration IE9 shares with the Windows OS - and your PC hardware generally - in order to bolster the browsing experience, claiming IE9 browsing becomes "as fast and responsive as native applications installed on your PC".And, in a sign of times, IE9 does not offer support for Windows XP. It will be a significant let-down for many users, but yep: only Vista and Windows 7 (and Server 2008) users need apply. Purportedly this is due to the graphics hardware acceleration features of IE9,which are optimised for newer operating systems.
Microsoft is hoping the new features will be enough to stem the slow but steady stream of browser users defecting to Google's Chrome, which has rocketed to a strong third position in the market (behind IE and Firefox) in just two and a half years (and which received a comprehensive update itself just one week ago).
Microsoft is presenting IE9 as the most standards-compliant browser it has ever released, with a strong focus on open HTML5 compatibility from the outset. It's also designed to offer a minimalist UI, so as not to get in the way of the user experience. As Microsoft puts it, "ideally, browsers melt into the background and allow websites to come forward and shine".
Microsoft is also emphasising with its new release the tight integration IE9 shares with the Windows OS - and your PC hardware generally - in order to bolster the browsing experience, claiming IE9 browsing becomes "as fast and responsive as native applications installed on your PC".And, in a sign of times, IE9 does not offer support for Windows XP. It will be a significant let-down for many users, but yep: only Vista and Windows 7 (and Server 2008) users need apply. Purportedly this is due to the graphics hardware acceleration features of IE9,which are optimised for newer operating systems.
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