Test-drive the future of IE today

By Matthew Guay on March 17, 2010 in Techinch

During this week’s MIX ‘10 conference, Microsoft unveiled a preview version of Internet Explorer 9, the latest in a long line of IE versions dating back to 1995. Although this test version wouldn’t work as your standard main browser, it is still an exciting look at the future of web browsing on Windows. Keep reading for more information and a quick overview of installing and running the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview.

Internet Explorer usage has been declining in recent years as competition has increased from faster and standards compliant competitors including Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. Recently, Microsoft was even required to offer Windows users a browser choice in the European Union, giving even more publicity to their competitors. I (with assistance from Mysticgeek) recently reviewed each of these browsers at How-to Geek, and we noted how many of the popular browsers offered better speed and standards than IE.

With IE9, however, Microsoft intends to outdo the competition. Although it is not completed yet, it already offers better performance than Firefox 3.6, and includes support for HTML 5, CSS 3, and SVG graphics. It currently only scores 55 on the ACID3 test, but Microsoft remains committed to increasing that and making IE9 increasingly standards compliant.

But the most interesting things are the new Javascript engine and GPU powered rendering. The new Javascript engine compiles code on a separate thread, making IE run even faster on modern multiple core processors. And then IE renders graphics faster and better than ever before using your GPU, offering full GPU rendered HTML 5 and SVG! For more information on these developments, check out post about the platform preview on the IE blog.

Running Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview Today

You can get a feel for all this new technology today by downloading the latest version of the IE 9 Platform Preview at ietestdrive.com. Microsoft is committed to releasing a new update to this every 8 weeks, so you’ll be sure to be running the latest IE code. Due to the new rendering features, IE9 is only available for Windows Vista and 7. Also, do note that this is simply a preview version, and will run side-by-side with your existing version of IE.

Once you’ve got it downloaded, run the installer for a quick setup experience. Accept the license agreement, and click Install.

The install was complete in under a minute in my test.

Once it’s installed, you can run the IE Platform Preview. Notice that there is nearly no UI in this version, as it is simply designed to preview the new core technology in IE 9.

The home page offers many demos and tests of the new features in IE 9. Try them out, and compare them in other browsers! Here’s the popular Flying Images demo running in IE 9 Platform Preview.

You can return to the homepage by clicking Page, then Home, or to open another webpage, click Page, then select Open.

Now enter the address you want, and click Ok.

IE 9 Platform Preview includes an enhanced set of developer tools, so you can dynamically edit your webpage and view the changes in realtime. To open these tools, simply press F12 or click Debug, then select Developer Tools.

Here’s the Developer Tools running from IE 9 Platform Preview.

And don’t forget, this is prerelease software! Don’t be suprised if there are bugs, but enjoy the new features and let the IE Team know your thoughts by reporting bugs and chiming in at their blog http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/.