IE9 Preview

NathanE · 16 Mar 2010 at 16:23

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

Highlights:
- Background compilation of JavaScript
- HTML5 support
- GPU-accelerated rendering

Download now, folks

Dj_Jestar · 16 Mar 2010 at 16:34

Good to see they are pushing for compliance

RandomTom · 16 Mar 2010 at 16:53

Could they not have integrated this into IE8, the numbers are already adding barriers to things for existing users.

IE6 needs to be totally killed, IE7 killed soon after - Why provide support for legacy versions when you're 2-3 ahead of it? Hopefully this'll be a nice addition to the line though, IE8 was decent.

GravyMonster · 16 Mar 2010 at 17:08

I know it's only a pre-release example, but it has a hell of a long way to go. Just downloaded the preview and google doesn't even render properly LOL.

mr.sly · 16 Mar 2010 at 17:13

Nice step forward, am I right in thinking IE 9 will only ship with the next version of Windows though?

Tripnologist · 16 Mar 2010 at 17:13

We're slowly getting there.
IE6 is around 15% across all our websites and we've starting to drop support for it. Unless the client specifically requests otherwise, we make sure the site is simply viewable in IE6 and nothing more.

Dj_Jestar · 16 Mar 2010 at 17:33

RE: Use of IE6. The Government are actively refusing to upgrade past IE6. My girlfriend works in one of the (many) departments Labour have created, and IE6 is all they are allowed.

Immsy · 16 Mar 2010 at 18:43

Dj_Jestar said:
RE: Use of IE6. The Government are actively refusing to upgrade past IE6. My girlfriend works in one of the (many) departments Labour have created, and IE6 is all they are allowed.

You would have thought they woud have a rethink after the Google incident in China as I believe that was due to IE6.

NathanE · 16 Mar 2010 at 18:53

Dj_Jestar said:
RE: Use of IE6. The Government are actively refusing to upgrade past IE6. My girlfriend works in one of the (many) departments Labour have created, and IE6 is all they are allowed.

The IT managers of these departments need to be sacked.

NathanE · 16 Mar 2010 at 18:54

RandomTom said:
Could they not have integrated this into IE8, the numbers are already adding barriers to things for existing users.

IE6 needs to be totally killed, IE7 killed soon after - Why provide support for legacy versions when you're 2-3 ahead of it? Hopefully this'll be a nice addition to the line though, IE8 was decent.

It is a major release

It would be very difficult to somehow integrate these level of features into IE8.

Mattus · 16 Mar 2010 at 18:58

Kinda disappointed. The perfect CSS3 support is encouraging, but I was expecting Microsoft to really go for this and show something which passed Acid3 and beat out Chrome and Opera in SunSpider. 55/100 is well behind every other browser. The JS performance is a nice improvement, but it's well behind Chrome/Safari/Opera, and Firefox has big changes coming up which will jump it ahead of IE9 before it's released. Microsoft's resources must dwarf those of Opera, and they're only developing for one platform... surely they should be able to find comparable performance?

[edit] What's interesting is that they're supporting HTML5 <video> with H264. So do Chrome and Safari, which puts pressure on Mozilla.

Xenoxide · 16 Mar 2010 at 19:34

This is a step in the right direction. HTML5 support is awesome. Hardware acceleration isn't needed, but it's nice to have. And faster JavaScript is always good.

Add support for CSS3 child selectors and I'd say this is awesome.

NathanE · 16 Mar 2010 at 19:37

Mattus said:
Kinda disappointed. The perfect CSS3 support is encouraging, but I was expecting Microsoft to really go for this and show something which passed Acid3 and beat out Chrome and Opera in SunSpider. 55/100 is well behind every other browser. The JS performance is a nice improvement, but it's well behind Chrome/Safari/Opera, and Firefox has big changes coming up which will jump it ahead of IE9 before it's released. Microsoft's resources must dwarf those of Opera, and they're only developing for one platform... surely they should be able to find comparable performance?

[edit] What's interesting is that they're supporting HTML5 <video> with H264. So do Chrome and Safari, which puts pressure on Mozilla.

Supporting Acid3 is not possible today. Not without breaking standards compliance anyway.

mr.sly · 16 Mar 2010 at 20:41

NathanE said:
Supporting Acid3 is not possible today. Not without breaking standards compliance anyway.

I thought that was the whole point of compatibility mode, to allow them to provide a standards compliant browser while not breaking the web?

NathanE · 16 Mar 2010 at 22:16

mr.sly said:
I thought that was the whole point of compatibility mode, to allow them to provide a standards compliant browser while not breaking the web?

Dunno. My point was that Acid3 tests various HTML5 and CSS3 features which are still in draft form, i.e. not yet standards.

Mattus · 17 Mar 2010 at 01:45

Just had a play with the preview. It does look to be a big performance improvement. Almost all of Microsoft's tests run much more smoothly on Opera 10.5, though.