Whats new in Internet Explorer 9? The improvements to Internet Explorer are as much about what you don’t see as what you do see. Internet Explorer 9 has a streamlined design, fewer dialog boxes to click through, more intuitive navigation, and many new features that speed up your web browsing experience. Features like
Pinned Sites let you pin your favorite website directly to the taskbar for one-click access. Other features, like hardware acceleration, deliver an all-around faster browsing experience. With Internet Explorer 9, websites perform and feel more like the programs you use every day on your PC.
Here’s some of what’s new:
Streamlined design
The first thing you’ll notice when you open Internet Explorer 9 is the compact user interface. Most command bar functions, like Print or Zoom, can now be accessed by clicking the Tools button, and your favorites appear when you click the Favorites button. Otherwise, Internet Explorer gives you the basic controls you need, and lets the web take center stage.
Internet Explorer 9 puts the focus on the web
Note If you want to restore the Command bar, Favorites bar, and status bar, right-click to the right of the New Tab button, and then select them on the menu.
Pinned Sites
If you visit certain webpages regularly, Pinned Sites allows you access them directly from the taskbar on your Windows 7 desktop.
Pin sites to your task bar for instant navigation
Pinning a site is simple: click the icon to the left of the web address in the address bar (or the website icon on the New Tab page) and drag it to the taskbar—the website’s icon will stay there until you remove it. When you click the icon later, the website will open in Internet Explorer.
Whenever you open a pinned site, the website icon appears at the top of the browser, so you have easy access to the website home page. The Back and Forward buttons change color to match the color of the icon.
Download Manager
Download Manager is a powerful new feature that keeps a running list of the files you download from the Internet and notifies you when a file could be malicious. It also lets you pause and restart a download—if you have a slow internet connection—and shows you where to find downloaded files on your computer. You can clear the list at any time.
Keep your downloads in order with Download Manager
Enhanced tabs
Tabbed browsing allows you to move easily between multiple open webpages in a single window, but there might be times when you want to look at two tabbed pages at the same time. Tear-off tabs allow you to drag a tab out of Internet Explorer to open the tab’s webpage in a new window, and Snap it for side-by-side viewing.
See two tabs side-by-side with Tear-off tabs
Tabs are also color coded to show which open webpages are related to each other—to give you a handy visual reference as you click between tabs.
New Tab page
The redesigned New Tab page displays the sites you visit most often and color codes them for quick navigation. A site indicator bar also shows how often you visit each site, and you can remove or hide the displayed sites anytime you like.
The New Tab page
Search in the address Bar
Type a search term in the address bar to find what you’re looking for
When you search from the address bar, you’ll have the option of opening a search results page or the top search result (if your search engine supports the feature). You can also get optional search suggestions in the address bar—but they are off by default, in case you don’t want to share what you type with a search provider.
Notification Bar
The Notification Bar that appears at the bottom of Internet Explorer gives you important status information when you need it, but it won’t force you to click a series of messages to continue browsing.
The Notification Bar gives you information without getting in your way
Add-on Performance Advisor
Add-ons, such as toolbars, can enhance your browsing experience, but they can also slow it down. Add-on Performance Advisor tells you if an add-on is slowing down your browser performance, and then allow you to disable or remove it.
Experience better browsing with Add-on Performance Advisor
Hardware acceleration
To speed up performance, Internet Explorer uses the power of your computer’s graphics processor, also known as a GPU, to handle graphics-heavy tasks like video streaming or online gaming. By tapping into the GPU, Internet Explorer delivers a faster and more immersive web experience.
If you’re still using Windows XP you’re out of luck. IE9 will only be available for Windows Vista and Windows 7.
To get more information or to download the “beta” version click here
To see the features available, click here
Here’s a comparison of IE9 with Chrome and Firefox as well as how IE9 compares to IE7 and IE8
