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Microsoft Cranks Out Internet Explorer 9 RC

- By - Source : Microsoft

The release candidate of IE9 is now officially available. Expect a polished version of the beta that is marginally slower than the most recent Platform Preview, but adds two new features.

Microsoft has won the RC race against Mozilla and is on schedule to release the final version of IE9 in early March or about one year after the release of the first platform preview. From the outside, Microsoft has made tremendous progress with IE9 and is offering a very competitive browser that returns to a level of innovation that is reminiscent of IE4.

If you are among the 20 million-or-so downloaders of IE9 Beta, you may not notice any changes. At a feature level, this release now includes a do-no-track feature as well as an ActiveX filter. As far as benchmarks and the usual array of tests is concerned, IE9 remains at 95/100 in Acid3, but climbs to a score of 121/300 in HTML5test.com when compared to the Beta. We noticed that the RC is clearly faster in JavaScript benchmark runs than the Beta, but about 8% slower than the latest Platform Preview 7 version.  However, the RC is still fast enough to edge out Chrome 9, at least on our Phenom II-X6 benchmark PC.

In a first testrun, IE9 RC left a very polished impression with some minor hiccups. One of them appears to be stuck in the installation routine as the browser simply refused to install without complaints on our specific Windows 7-64 PC. Strangely enough, the RC ended up installing itself as a Windows update when the installation file was executed after a system restart.

While IE9 is Microsoft's most competitive browser since IE4, the browser's problem is the fact that it is limited to Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP2 users (32-bit/64-bit). According to Net Applications, Windows XP still holds well more than 55% of the operating system market, which shuts out IE9 from more than half of the entire market and leaves this portion to its rivals, mainly Chrome and Firefox. 

Try out the new browser:

Windows 7 32 bit
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/download/Internet-Explorer,0301-20990-18343.html

Windows 7 64 bit
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/download/Internet-Explorer,0301-20990-24739.html

Windows Vista 32 bit
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/download/Internet-Explorer,0301-20990-24742.html

Windows Vista 64 bit
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/download/Internet-Explorer,0301-20990-24743.html

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Bigmac80 02/10/2011 9:15 PM
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On my laptop Asus G73 it was having problems with internet explorer 9. Well the problem i ran into was trying to play GTA4 it wouldn't let me upload the patch then i switched back to explorer 8 and then it worked. I haven't tried out the new one yet though i tried the beta.

darkchazz 02/10/2011 9:20 PM
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IE9 is causing problems with GTA IV :/
I know it's a bugged console port, but hey I hope R* or M$ fix it.

I guess I'll just revert to IE8 and stick with Firefix 4 beta :D

belardo 02/10/2011 9:55 PM
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IE9 is below Opera 10... and who knows how much below Opera 11.01

Anonymous 02/10/2011 10:16 PM
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Oh great, now there will be FOUR differently fucked-up browsers I'll have to test code against. At least with FF and Chrome you can reasonably expect users to be on a fairly recent version, instead of a 10-year-old one...

dillyflump 02/10/2011 10:33 PM
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Internet Explorer? Do idiots still use this crap? Firefox & Chrome ftw, based solely on addon and functionality.

rhino13 02/10/2011 10:33 PM
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It's worth noting here that most of those 55% of users are the unsavvy ones.
They aren't going to be upgrading to any new browser unless it's pushed out by Windows Update anyway!

wcooper007 02/10/2011 11:01 PM
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Its funny that people complain about Internet explorer but its used by more people than anyother browser on the planet and i actually only use it i hate mozilla i hate chrome and i hate opera to me there just to bland and i have been using IE from back in 95 days

adamboy64 02/10/2011 11:02 PM
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I'd been using the IE9 beta for sometime, but had to revert to IE8 - but can't remember why now. I miss the added functionality of it though.

rhino13 :
It's worth noting here that most of those 55% of users are the unsavvy ones.They aren't going to be upgrading to any new browser unless it's pushed out by Windows Update anyway!


That's an interesting point. I do wonder how many in that 55% are corporate users.

dillyflump :
Internet Explorer? Do idiots still use this crap?


Whoa.. a fanboy got mad.

orkie 02/10/2011 11:19 PM
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I've always liked Internet explorer more than any other browser, just because i got used to it and no matter what people say, to me 99% of the time it loads pages faster than other browsers. I still use Firefox for that other 1% of the webpages that give me trouble with IE for 1 reason or another or when i need a specific addon like foxyproxy. i'm currently using the IE 9 beta and it crashes so often,seriosly i remember using the IE8 beta and never had problems so this did come out as a suprise... hopefully won't stay like that after it's finished.

Also what happened to the little down arrow after the Go forward and go backwards arrows which you could click on IE8 and chose exactly where to go back to or forward to? Why remove cool buttons microsoft.. why?

otacon72 02/11/2011 12:08 PM
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Belardo :
IE9 is below Opera 10... and who knows how much below Opera 11.01



Tried Opera for about 5 mins and went back to IE.

pawessum16 02/11/2011 12:09 PM
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I'd use IE9....if it had an ad blocker. Back to chrome. Tom's looks ugly with IE9 lol

otacon72 02/11/2011 12:09 PM
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wcooper007 :
Its funny that people complain about Internet explorer but its used by more people than anyother browser on the planet and i actually only use it i hate mozilla i hate chrome and i hate opera to me there just to bland and i have been using IE from back in 95 days



I too tried them all and came back to IE.

retrig 02/11/2011 12:10 PM
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Quote :but climbs to a score of 121/300 in HTML5test.com when compared to the Beta


And the value for Beta was.... what exactly?

jimmysmitty 02/11/2011 3:21 AM
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dillyflump :
Internet Explorer? Do idiots still use this crap? Firefox & Chrome ftw, based solely on addon and functionality.



This is ignorance. I am happy using both IE9 and FF3.6 (can't move to 4 due to addon support). But for most everything I use IE9 and its fast and simple. It does a great job on most every website and finally is supporting the W3C standards, which was one of the biggest problems with IE7/IE8.

But if you are too stubborn to even try IE9 then why even speak at all? Innovation comes from everywhere be it the large company or the small company. Its better to have more than just a few good web browsers out there because it pushes the other guys to be better.

As for Chrome, meh. I never saw what the hype was. Besides it installs Google Update that likes to leave ports open for attack.

rhino13 :
It's worth noting here that most of those 55% of users are the unsavvy ones.They aren't going to be upgrading to any new browser unless it's pushed out by Windows Update anyway!



I don't think its going to stay at 55% for that much longer. Mainly because most customers I talk to at my work (I work at SWS Computers as a repair tech) are interested in Windows 7 and are fine with going to it because the reviews have been great.

I just had a guy ask me if his PC could run Windows 7, of course it was too old to run it happily but he is going to buy a custom build with 7 anyways.

pawessum16 :
I'd use IE9....if it had an ad blocker. Back to chrome. Tom's looks ugly with IE9 lol



AdBlock Pro supports IE9.... Not sure why the guys doing Adblock Plus don't but its their choice.

For me, THG looks the same in IE9 as FF or IE8 and even runs better in IE9.

retrig :
And the value for Beta was.... what exactly?



It was something along 95/96. But there was one error I found with it. It stated that IE9 Beta didn't have mpeg4 support yet it did. In fact one of the things Microsoft made to show off the embedded hardware/codex support was a kaleidoscope of mpeg4 videos playing so I question if html5test.com is able to fully see IE9s features.....

mayankleoboy1 02/11/2011 3:35 AM
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been a fan of IE8 till 6 months ago when i switched to ff 3.6 because IE started giving some trouble.

now i am a total conv ert to FF. i did download the IE9, tested it for a few minutes, exclaimed it was fast compared to ff 3.6 and didnt open it again.
seriously, FF is much better than IE, not in least due to add-ons.

jimmysmitty 02/11/2011 4:00 AM
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I just installed the RC and had no problems installing it. Installed then wanted a restart. There are a few changes visually, the tabs look different, more square but overall it feels the same.

But THG is loading faster as are a few other websites and the download manager now displays the download speed where as before it was just a percentage done which is nice to have.

I still like IE9 and hope the final release ends up even better with more HTML5 support. HTML5 YouTube is much better than Flash YouTube. Although when I restarted Flash had a update for IE9 to 10.2........

kkiddu 02/11/2011 4:31 AM
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Brr, nothing like Firefox with all its addons.

Bolbi 02/11/2011 4:32 AM
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IE 9 RC installed just fine on my two systems running Windows 7 Home Premium x64. (See my Member Configuration page for more details.) The overall speed and UI seem to be improved, but I'm still a happy Firefox 4.0 beta user.

alzheimerz 02/11/2011 9:01 AM
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The font texture and alignment of IE9 beta on my 1920x1080 screen resolution is the worst. :(

SteelCity1981 02/11/2011 9:54 AM
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I think it was a big mistake to leave out Windows XP users from using IE9 considering 55% of pc users still run Windows XP. Now Chrome, Opera and FireFox will take full advantage of Windows XP users.

Silmarunya 02/11/2011 1:21 PM
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A very good browser, but not a great one. I have a few gripes with it:

1) UI: IE9 looks brilliant, unless you enable extra toolbars like the favorites bar. These ones don't have the transparancy of the rest of the UI and thus stick out like a sore thumb. In FF and especially Chrome, these toolbars look like they are a part of the browser, not just something that's sticked on top.

2) Ad ons. Or rather, the lack thereof. (although in corporate environments, that might be a good thing). I'd look to have an ad blocker and a bookmarks sync features that don't require seperate programs to be installed.

Give IE9 these features, and it's the best browser on the market. Now it's just something worth considering.

noblerabbit 02/11/2011 4:30 PM
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IE9 does not work at all with many popular online Flash games. Oh well, perhaps its a sign to quit spending time on them.

Bolbi 02/11/2011 5:03 PM
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noblerabbit :
IE9 does not work at all with many popular online Flash games. Oh well, perhaps its a sign to quit spending time on them.


Hm, I just did a quick test of my personal favorite flash game (Commando 2), and it worked just fine in IE 9 RC. Make sure you have the latest version of Flash Player installed and are using the correct browser version (not IE 9 64-bit).

thartist 02/11/2011 8:10 PM
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It is nice to have it because it feels like something up to date and much more advanced than IE8 as the Windows 'native' browser, but it's too made for non techies and leaves me wanting too much stuff that i'm used to having with... another browser.

pawessum16 02/13/2011 1:37 AM
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pawessum16 :
I'd use IE9....if it had an ad blocker. Back to chrome. Tom's looks ugly with IE9 lol


IE9 is actually starting to grow on me. I'm liking the tracking protection and in a way is almost like a built in ad blocker.
Thanks for the update on an IE adblocker jimmysmitty. I didn't realize one exists although I think I'll hold off on a dedicated adblocker until I see how well the tracking protection works.

cpatel1987 02/13/2011 9:53 AM
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Its too bad though IE is overshadowed by the ever successful other two power browsers out there.

Anonymous 02/14/2011 6:03 AM
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Can't upload video to Youtube with ie9rc. The upload icon is not there!

chaos133 02/21/2011 2:11 AM
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I'll wait till the full version comes out, the Beta had too many bugs, I was going to report them to Microsoft and that didn't even work.