Exactly How Good is Internet Explorer 9?

By: Andrew Seaman

It’s been exactly one week since the first beta version of Internet Explorer 9 was released - time enough for a full test drive. We'll tell you what is good from a user perspective with the new Microsoft browser, and where it still has weaknesses.

We test the new Internet Explorer 9

"The browser is the stage and the backdrop, but the star of the show is the website," with these words, Internet Explorer head Dean Hachamovitch presented the latest edition of the Microsoft browser.

That this is more than hollow words, Internet Explorer (shortly IE) 9 Beta 1 first glance. Address box and search box have been replaced by a single field, "one bar" that is only half as large as the old address field. The tabs are slid up and are to the right of the one bar in addition there are fewer buttons. What remains are only the first and the back button, and Cancel buttons to update the charging process and two buttons for the favorites and settings. At the bottom of the browser's status bar is gone.

In sum, the way the Web is dedicated IE more space than any other current browser. Through small defects can be seen as away happy. As you glide the mouse over a link, the target link appear in a popup at the bottom, where it acts in the absence homeless status bar. The large, for reasons of space below the cut back button does not properly balanced and the buttons for Cancel, and update you could just combine them into one button.

Revised alerts

Last we had got used to IE issues and directions in a yellow bar at the top of the site indicates. Microsoft now thinks that this is against the natural direction of view and has replaced the yellow bar at the bottom through a popup window. For the first time you will encounter this warning if IE 9 after the installation asks if he may be spreading as the default browser in the system. The beta version can be installed by the way is not parallel to an older version of Microsoft's browser, but displaces it. But the annoying setup wizard is gone, as IU was 8 feeder. Let's hope the final release to remain so.

When you open a new tab, then IE 9 is there left in the past frequently visited Pages. As with other browsers, has long been customary, it is also now in IE tabs from the tab bar "tear" and thus transform it into a separate window. This works so smoothly that even a Web video continues to run while seamless.

Websites to Pin Down

Pretty cool is festzupinnen the opportunity, individual pages on the Windows Taskbar. To this end, we simply subtract the web address from the One Bar with the left mouse button on the taskbar and lets them go there.

Instead of the IE logo there appears the symbol of the site. Clicking on it opens the site in a separate browser window. Is useful for example in the webmail, social networking and other regularly visited sites.

The buttons for forward and backward in such windows to take the colors on the website icons. Website operators can also pimp their pages so that on Windows 7, the Jump List is filled. Stands to reason that you think about the future can go out directly from the Taskbar in subcategories of a website.

Smart Advanced Solutions

Let's go back to one bar, the combined field for web addresses and search terms. In the past, Microsoft had declined this combination because entries may be submitted to search engines, without this the user is right.

The new One bar has a drop where you can also configure the search engines.

No wonder, then, that the automatic recourse to the default search engine in the Bar One has to manually enable. Once you have entered for the first time a keyword is clicked in the combo box with search suggestions "Enable search suggestions" on. At the bottom of the list can be found is a list of search engines configured in the browser and can change quickly. This is clever, has a well thought out and practical - so do not really like Internet Explorer.

In general this is an impression that we are after a week of the 9 Beta IE can not close Microsoft has done much to transform the Internet Explorer browser into a truly useful. Another example is the Download Manager, IE 9 (finally, after all these years!).