Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 9

March 15, 2011 By Andrew Couts

Microsoft's newest browser, Internet Explorer 9, has officially been released into the wild — and it has the potential to prey on even the fastest competitors in the browser pack.

Microsoft’s long-awaited browser update, Internet Explorer 9, is now available for download from BeautyOfTheWeb.com. The announcement of IE9′s official launch came during the Microsoft event at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas, on Monday.

Rather than a mere update, IE9 is a complete rebuild from IE8, which many used, but also complained about.

In terms of user interface (UI), IE9 looks and feels completely different than its predecessors, with simplified controls and a clean, up-to-date design.

In addition to controls and cosmetics, IE9 has some much-needed functionality updates, as well. These include the new “Pinned Sites” feature (pictured above), which allows individual websites to be “pinned” to the Windows Taskbar with its own icon. This makes it appear as though the site is a separate program. Certain enabled sites function like individual programs, as well, with additional controls accessible by right-clicking the site icon. (For instance, if you “pin” Twitter.com, you can right click to open up a menu that allows for instant access to Mentions, Direct Mentions, and so forth.)

The next big new feature in IE9 is the “One Box,” which doubles as an address bar and a search bar. When searching through the One Box, results are pulled up instantly, meaning you may not have to go to the search engine to find what you’re looking for.

The One Box comes pre-loaded with Microsoft’s Bing search engine, but Google, Facebook and many others can be installed through the Add-On page.

One of the potentially most significant aspects to IE9 is its performance: According to Engadget, Microsoft’s new browser is faster than IE8 or Firefox 3.6.15, and is almost as fast as Google Chrome. IE9 also offers advanced support for HTML 5, an emerging web standard.

It’s too soon to tell how well the public will react to IE9. But if early moods among the technorati are any indication, it looks as though Microsoft might once again have a winner in its stable.

Showing 12 comments

David Carter at 12:17am 16th March 2011 Change you Chrome settings to automatic. And you'll see why Chrome is the best hands down. And with the new Chrome OS, the browser has just been pumped up with steroids. For goodness sake chrome is an entire operating system also.
Scotty Quill at 8:41pm 15th March 2011 At last weeks Pwn2Own annual hacking challenge, Safari was hacked first, IE next.. I'll stick with Firefox, nothing is safe but time and time again Firefox stands up pretty good.. Google Pwn2Own and read for yourselves!
Scott Aron Bloom at 5:07pm 15th March 2011 @Mike - When I hover over another tab, the X shows up to close that tab without opening the tab
Mariana Andrade at 5:00pm 15th March 2011 Wack! Safari is the way to go...
Faye Brogi at 4:53pm 15th March 2011 "According to Engadget, Microsoft’s new browser is faster than IE8 or Firefox 3.6.15, and is almost as fast as Google Chrome.""almost as fast as Chrome" heh. Does this facelift include better security?
Bernd Currie at 4:45pm 15th March 2011 It works good, highly recommend for Facebook :) if useing win 7
Mike Hogan at 4:44pm 15th March 2011 I love it, only wish closing a tab was easier, similar to Chrome. It is a nuisance to have to open a tab to be able to close it.
joeguy7 at 7:41am 15th March 2011 is there a place to upgrade from beta or do you have to do the entire install over?
Saifee at 7:30am 15th March 2011 Seem like speed is "the" major update & improvement on IE9. Other browsers now have a serious competitor at hand.
The Android Apps HQ at 7:22am 15th March 2011 I've been using IE9 beta for about 6 months now...well...let me change that. I downloaded it last fall (2010) and started using it since I was doing some ASP.Net courses and it claimed to work the best with them. It was nowhere near the speed of Chrome or Firefox at start-up, and just feels like they put a new shirt on the clunky engine despite the claims. It was sad for me as I've been a Microsoft fan for 20+ years, but they seem to have lost their touch when Bill left.
Webhead at 7:12am 15th March 2011 is almost as fast as Google Chrome." That's all you need to know.
1. fredclown at 8:36am 15th March 2011 Except that in some benchmarks it is faster than Chrome and in other benchmarks Chrome is faster and in yet others Firefox 4 is faster. So, really the whole "almost as fast as Chrome" statement is just bunk.