IE9 Beta

[Embattle]

It can now be downloaded from preview site - Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Does anyone care about IE anymore?

 

[ford prefect]

I'm afraid I can't be bothered crashing windows with it.

 

[Embattle]

Well so far for me it seems fast and fine.

 

[Wij]

Where's the Linux version ?

 

[MYstIC G]

Install Wine.

IE9 is actually not bad considering it's a M$ jobbie.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

But what does it offer that Firefox and Chrome can't?

 

[MYstIC G]

Better site to desktop integration, hardware acceleration, apparently the UI uses fewer pixels then even chrome.

 

[Embattle]

It is indeed fast, although that sort of remark is always subjective unless running the various tests out on the net. The desktop intergration is nice, although other than Windows 7 no idea how well it works with things such as pulling of tabs and also pinning websites to the taskbar.

Flash Update - Adobe Labs - Downloads: Flash Player "Square" Preview Release

Includes these changes:

• 64-bit support — Native support for 64-bit operating systems and 64-bit web browsers on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.
• Internet Explorer 9 hardware accelerated rendering support — Enhanced support for Internet Explorer 9 Beta. It takes advantage of hardware accelerated graphics in Internet Explorer 9 Beta, utilizing hardware rendering surfaces to improve graphics performance and enable seamless composition.

 

[Embattle]

The preview flash player seems to be slightly problematic, at least for me websites had problems even finding it.

 

[Wij]

Booted Win7 to try it. Much faster and prettier admittedly.

 

[Embattle]

The preview flash player seems to be slightly problematic, at least for me websites had problems even finding it.

This issue was my fault since I had the 64bit plugin but didn't realise the default IE9 is actually 32bit. Although in testing on things like sunspider the 64bit version showed up as being 4 times slower than the 32bit version.