Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta: First Hand Experience…Beauty of the Web Unleashed !!!

Hello All,

Now that Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta, you would like test drive the same. I am sharing some of the first hand experience. The post will cover the brief about Internet Explorer 9 Beta deployed on Windows 7 machine with 64-bit version of Internet Explorer 9 Beta Release. In this post you will see the first hand experience with Internet Explorer 9 Beta on Windows 7. The machine that I am using is Lenovo T61p machine running Windows 7 Ultimate Edition. So let’s get going.

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Experience the Beauty of the Web at https://www.beautyoftheweb.com/

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Some of the new features of Windows Internet Explorer 9 are as follows.

Internet Explorer 9 is all-around fast

Designed to take full advantage of your Windows PC’s hardware, Internet Explorer 9 delivers graphically rich and immersive experiences that are as fast and responsive as native applications installed on your PC. These new features make Internet Explorer 9 fast.

Hardware-accelerated Graphics.

As an example of how Internet Explorer 9 takes advantage of the power of the whole PC, rendering of graphics and text has been moved from the CPU to the graphics card (graphics processing unit or “GPU”), using the Direct2D and DirectWrite sets of Windows application programming interfaces (APIs). Hardware-accelerated text, video, and graphics means your websites perform like native applications installed directly on your Windows PC.

Fast installation experience.

Compared to Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9 asks fewer questions, installs much faster, and does require a reboot. Internet Explorer 9 installations require 4 clicks. Internet Explorer 8 installations required 13 clicks (and up to 23 clicks when using custom settings).

Pinned Sites

Most users visit a small number of websites daily, often several times a day. These sites are frequently full-featured Web applications that have their own navigation, site search, and notification of new content that users depend on rather than using browsing controls. By pinning a site, the site is at the center of the experience, not the browser.

One-click navigation

With Pinned Sites, users’ favorite websites can be accessed directly from the Windows Taskbar without having to first open the browser. If users are within the browser, they can quickly access their favorite sites from the New Tab page.

And how it is different than Internet Explorer 8

Browser Interface - The new interface in Internet Explorer 9 is minimal with all toolbars turned off by default. Also the address bar and search bar are now merged. The favorites button has been moved to the right hand side next to the Home and Tools buttons and along with it the Favorites and History columns. The status bar is also disabled by default, and most of the messaging is done through the notification bar that pops up towards the bottom of the page.

Download Manager - There is a new download manager where we can view past downloads and their locations and also set a default save location. Like most explorer windows, the download manager also has an integrated search bar in the top right corner. The short cut for opening the manager is Ctrl + J. When a file is being downloaded the download bar pops up at the bottom of the Internet Explorer window and provides options for saving or running files and also to pause, cancel or view downloads. If Internet Explorer is closed in the middle of a download, the download will pause and then continue once Internet Explorer is opened again.

Add-on Manager – There are no major changes to the looks of the Add-on manager. However, the messaging and background functionality has been completely overhauled. By default all add-ons are disabled after installation of Internet Explorer 9. There is a notification on first start-up which allows the user to enable any add-ons they need. Also when Internet Explorer hangs or slows down due to an add-on the notification bar announces the same so as to keep the user aware of any problematic add-ons.

Improved Performance – This includes played audio and video and allows for very fast rendering of these elements. Also the new Chakra JavaScript engine allows for faster page loads for existing webpages that use JavaScript. The overall memory usage as well as power consumption has also been improved allowing for better experience on lesser memory systems and a longer battery life.

 

Installation Experience & Browser Interface (Aero Snapping or Tab Exchange within multiple browser sessions)

Let’s kick start with installation. You can download Internet Explorer 9 Beta and install. Installation is easy, just 4 click compared to IE 8, single restart and my IE 9 Browser is ready to rock.

The first thing you will notice is new icon vibrant icon for Internet Explorer 9 in Taskbar.

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And here is my Internet Explorer 9 Beta browser’s About Page…

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For the first time when click on IE 9 icon this is how my new Internet Explorer 9 Beta browser looks like…Very Clean, Crisp and Vibrant. No more menus, no more additional buttons, no stuff making is messy. First time you launch the browser it gives you an option to manage your add-ons. It calculates how much each add-on takes to load, making your browsing experience slower. You can quickly configure the add-ons and disable unwanted add-ons. Simple and what you see next is the simple to use interface.

First Time Launching IE

Now, let’s see how can you get back your core stuff like Favorites, Menus and other Toolbars. Well, they are there but not exposed Out-of-the-box to give you best experience.

Press Alt Key and you get your Menu options back…

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If you are interested to see those common menu options without clicking ALT. They are located in right hand corner.

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That’s your Home Button, Favorites Icon & Tools in the right corner. And if you right click you will have option to enable your toolbars and/or unlock them.

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After this let’s check out the New Tab option. And here I can see frequently visited sites. Open up any site and see the blazing performance.

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Now, something interesting to play around. If you want to group similar sites or tabs, if you want to move tabs across multiple Internet Explorer windows. It was not possible earlier..Now you can do it like this…Just DRAG THE TAB. You can have a new window or you can perform Aero Snap for side by side comparison. Total Windows 7 Experience. You can even restore the Tab in the same Window just like that…Drag & Drop. Seamless Experience.

Pull Tab

 

Pinned Sites

This experience is totally integrated with Windows 7. I liked the complete browser integration with the Windows 7. So the idea is simple if you like any site, just drag it to the Taskbar and it is available as Pinned Site. Here is an example.

Pin to TaskBar

You can Pin many sites…and what more these Pinned Sites let you accomplish the common tasks extending your overall experience. This is how it looks like when you Pin the site.

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If I right click on say MSN or Facebook. This is the beauty of IE 9 & Windows 7.

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And if you get any update you get quick notification, just like you standard Windows application. So here is a quick update on my Facebook Profile and my Facebook App Icon changes. This is superb.

Pin to TaskBar 3

Now, let’s launch the website by clicking on to this Facebook Icon and see the total experience. You will the button have Facebook shade, there is a Facebook look. It looks like complete custom Facebook Application.

Mask FB

Let’s try to see with Bing.com. It just works real time.

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Download Manager & Add-on Manager

This is my favorite feature. I have been waiting for this feature since long time. Here is how it looks like. You want to download file. Often you are travelling or connected on slow connections, the connectivity breaks and you lose the downloaded data. After reconnection the story begins. Well, here is the Download Manager built-in Internet Explorer to take care of that issue. This is how the experience is…

You click on the file to download. Once you hit download button, you see a notification at the bottom of the window with some options like Open, Save & Save As.

Built in Downloading 0

Let me start downloading and I can see real time downloading. I can Pause/Resume, no worries at all.

Built in Downloading

 

I will click on View Downloads to see the Download Manager. This is my Download Manager Window.

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I can change the default download location below.

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This is the best part. Often I can’t collect the download location of the exact file directly. But just right on the down and you can obtain the exact download link. So you can use it in future.

Built in Downloading 4

 

For Managing Add-on, we have the same Add-ons Manager. It is same as the older one but with little messaging & background functionalities improved.

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Developer Tools

Just hit F12 & you get all the Developer Tools you ever wanted including Profiler.

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For more features visit https://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/products/ie-9/features

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By any chance if you feel to uninstall the IE 9 Beta due some compatibility issue or some critical factors, you can go to Programs & Features and click on View installed Updates. You can see there is an update Windows Internet Explorer 9. You can uninstall it and roll back to Internet Explorer 8 in case there are any challenged. But I believe you will enjoy the blazing Internet Explorer 9 Experience. So let’s get going.

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That’s all from my end and I hope you will enjoy Internet Explorer 9 Beta as much as I do. I will leave the rest of the features to explore on your own. Do send your feedback to Microsoft for making it much more better experience for fixing any critical issues until it reaches RTM milestone.

download IE9 & Have a HappIE Browsin9

[Update]

Thanks to Sanjay Vyas for pointing out the correction.