8 ms·

Internet Explorer 9: Platform Preview

86 points by sid0 17y ago

lut4rp 17y ago
lol Microsoft.
briansmith 17y ago
Here's the developer guide: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/ff468705.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/ff468705.aspx
moe 17y ago
Interested in checking out the new Web platform capabilities of Internet Explorer 9? Honest question? No. Not at all. All I am interested in is: Can you please ship it with chrome frame pre-installed.
- n8agrin 17y ago
  Browser competition is a good thing. If Microsoft released the fastest standards compliant browser and became the industry leader (from a standars perspective) tomorrow I would be happy. I don't care what OS you run on your computer or which browser you choose. All I care about is my bits are displayed as intended and I find that IE makes that task significantly harder to accomplish. If my life could be made easier by a new MS browser, and other's browsing experiences improved, I'm all for it.
  - powrtoch 17y ago
    Sure. But there's a much simpler and more foolproof way to get your bits displayed properly to everyone who buys a new windows machine (which of course are just about the only non-developers who will get ie9): Scrap IE, start shipping windows with Opera, Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Let the crappy existing versions die off slowly and focus on improving the mediocre operating system rather than reinventing the wheel with a consistently inferior and uncooperative browser.
    - sid0 17y ago
      > (which of course are just about the only non-developers who will get ie9): Why so?
      - powrtoch 17y ago
        Historical evidence. Firstly, IE users are less likely to care enough to upgrade a browser, for the same reason they didn't care enough to look for a better one. Namely, it doesn't really matter to them and they're unaware of why it should. Secondly, Microsoft is a lot less pushy about software updates than other browser vendors. IE7 came out 4 years ago (and then IE8 two years later), but despite what an enormous improvement it was to IE6, we're only now seeing IE6 finally start to fade away. IE6 usage didn't drop below half of all IE usage until around June 2009. By comparison, Firefox 3 had more than double the usage of FF2 within 3 months of its debut. Chrome shows even better (in fact, absurdly fast) adoption rates. All this source StatCounter: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200807-201003 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200807... Add in corporations hesitant to update IE in the workplace, and you've got the IE stick-around-forever problem.
        sid0 17y ago
        But that still doesn't provide evidence that people buying a new computer are the only non-developers who will get IE9. You need to demonstrate that upgrades from IE6 to 7/8 are non-existent. In fact, I'd say the fact that IE7 has dropped below IE8 is evidence that people on IE do upgrade, and that the people on IE6 are only on it because they need it.
        powrtoch 17y ago
        I'm counting on common sense interpretations here. Obviously it's not the case that there are NO EXAMPLES of 7->8 upgrades. I'm suggesting that it's very much an exception rather than a rule. I don't have the energy to dig up the stats demonstrating a correlation between purchases of new computers and browser version market share. It's probably there, maybe it isn't. Whether that's the cause is immaterial though because the point remains: new IE versions tend to be adopted very slowly. And I would point out the enthusiastic reception of Win7 (comes with IE8) compared to the chilly reception of Vista (came with IE7) as evidence that browser adoption is correlated with sales of new computers (or more specifically, new OS's. Keep in mind a lot of Vista machines were sold with downgrade packs). And yes, Chrome auto-updates. That's part of my point about Microsoft being less pushy with their updates than other vendors.
  - moe 17y ago
    Not sure why I got bumped to -4, did we suddenly fall in love with IE? I'm also not sure how you fit "browser competition is a good thing" and microsoft in the same sentence. I still have scars from IE5-7, and currently collecting new ones from IE8, which is less prone to screwing up, but also more subtile when it does (intermittent white page due to js bugs? lovely..). As far as I am concerned I stand by what I wrote: I wish it would just go away (pipe dream) and I'm not interested in the slightest in what new bugs and misfeatures they introduce this time. I'll have to deal with them soon enough anyways, unless someone finds a way to trigger a force-install of chrome frame without user interaction... (I'll take a gecko-frame or even opera-frame as well, if those exist - none of them have ever given me nearly the misery of trident)
Auzy 17y ago
Certainly looks as though Microsoft are finally willing to try to take on the competition (they are actually flaunting the progress of ACID3, and posting benchmarks). In fact, its interesting that their new engine is so fast. Its going to get very interesting, especially since personally, I couldn't give a damn about supporting unfinalised standards the ACID3 tests (in fact, one of the ACID3 tests can't be passed 100% of the time anyway). Speed is important, and since a lot of applications use the IE engine, maybe this will speed up some other applications as well. Btw, I can confirm their sunspider benchmark.. Their preview does run faster than Firefox on my system (although, unsure if my addons are having an impact on that, or external causes). As its just a preview, it should only be taken with a grain of salt anyway..
- ecaron 17y ago
  I don't think anyone has ever questioned Microsoft's ability to take on the competition - or even beat the competition as they did in the Netscape wars. Rather, I think we're permanently jaded against the IE browser not because of its technical merits or flaws, but because they let it go stagnant. Knowing that people using Windows 2000 are stuck with IE6 - despite the fact that their machine still suits their needs - is why we need to continue to push people away from IE. Even if IE9 is amazing. Firefox 3.6 STILL works on Windows 2000 (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requirements.html http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requirements.htm...). Until Microsoft releases a browser we know isn't going to put us in the "I can't upgrade past IE6" situations that we hear about, I'll proudly support everything that isn't Internet Explorer. (Note: Has anyone ever tried to submit a bug report to Microsoft? It is impossible! I even put together http://crashie8.com/ http://crashie8.com/ as a proof of concept, and I still can't get anyone to acknowledge the problem!)
  - pavs 17y ago
    I think we should all take a moment to thank Google for making Chrome and get all browser developers to get out of their collective ass and do something to fix their broken browsers. The amount of improvement and works going on the top 4 browsers since Chrome was released is really amazing. IE 7-8 were half-assed job to counter Firefox's popularity. Even Firefox is getting their act together and their next release is very much inspired by chrome.
smokinn 17y ago
It'll be nice to see independent verification of their SunSpider benchmarks but if they hold up that's very good news.
jf 17y ago
Nice work zaatar and team!
oneplusone 17y ago
Finally, somebody implemented border-radius without throwing a prefix in front of it. I get tired of all the -moz and -wekit prefixes.
- ugh 17y ago
  I think Opera beat them to it.
  - rimantas 17y ago
    They did. Opera has this since Presto 2.3 (Opera 10.50 comes with 2.5)
- armandososa 17y ago
  Does this mean that webkit and mozilla are going to drop the prefix? What's the point of the prefixes to begin with?
  - smackfu 17y ago
    Because you get yelled at for doing a blink tag, but it's fine to do a moz-blink tag. The problem is when browser #2 wants to implement blink. They shouldn't use your prefix, so they now have webkit-blink. And the HTML writer now needs to sniff the browser. Progress?
    - gjm11 17y ago
      These are CSS properties, not HTML elements. There is no need to sniff; you just provide multiple properties. p.wibble { -moz-blink: slowly; -webkit-blink: 10%; -ie9-blink: "Microsoft.XML.Autocompositor(alpha=99,blinkrate=14692,emulate-old-ie-versions=false,true,true,false)#ie9" } or whatever. (In practice everyone who provides these properties does so in a very similar manner, so it's easier than the above pseudosnippet suggests.)
  - youngian 17y ago
    The point is that those things are/were still in "draft" specification and so it's asking for trouble to implement them in a way that will prevent changes to the final spec. I'm sure once the standards are finalized the prefixes will be dropped (or really, deprecated).
sid0 17y ago
It's certainly fast, but the lack of <canvas> is disappointing.
- n8agrin 17y ago
  But it should support SVG. I'm not convinced canvas is the greatest in-browser rendering option for many of the things web devs want to do anyhow like click handlers and simple animations. There is a reason why many browser-based vis libraries are switching over to SVG (and VML in older IEs).
  - mcantelon 17y ago
    There's always been separate use-cases for pixel and vector-based graphics.
  - sketerpot 17y ago
    Even so, canvas is useful and I'd really like to have it available.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
justinph 17y ago
No mention of WOFF? So we're stuck with EOT?
latch 17y ago
I hate to be conspiracy-theory-guy, but deep down, I feel that the rate at which IE becomes compliant is tied to Silverlight's market penetration. The move to open standards on the web will only truly come when MS feels like it has sufficient control over a different proprietary technology.
- dutchflyboy 17y ago
  Uhm, off-topic much? I mean, Silverlight isn't linked to IE9 in any way. Silverlight is a plugin, like flash. It will work in Firefox too, but isn't installed by default. I don't see the link between IE9 (which gives web developpers the possibility to make interactive websites WITHOUT plugins) and Silverlight (a plugin).
twism 17y ago
Anyone know what the word is on WebSockets?
- stanleydrew 17y ago
  As far as I know Chrome is still the only browser that supports WebSockets. Can anyone refute this? FF 3.7 maybe?
  - twism 17y ago
    FF 3.7 is the targeted release for WebSockets.
    - stanleydrew 17y ago
      Isn't there a release candidate out for FF 3.7? If so can you confirm that WebSockets support is in there?
      - Perceval 17y ago
        There's an Alpha3 'technology preview' of Fx3.7: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/3.7a3-candidates/ I don't know if WebSockets is included or not.
- ovi256 17y ago
  Websockets are something I long dreamed about : bidirectional HTTP, no more stupid AJAX polling tricks.
  - btipling 17y ago
    Yeah now you just have to deal with this stupidity: Send the following bytes: 0D 0A did that work? ok send the following bytes: 57 65 62 53 6F 63 6B 65 74 2D 50 72 6F 74 6F 63 6F 6C 3A 20 etc: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol-54 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol...
iaskwhy 17y ago
From the FAQ: Does Platform Preview replace my current Internet Explorer? No, it does not, though it does share some settings with your existing Internet Explorer intsallation. One of the best features of Platform Preview is that it installs side-by-side with earlier versions of Internet Explorer and any other browser(s) on your computer.
- thechangelog 17y ago
  While I'm glad to see this, it flies in the face of their previous position that side-by-side IE was impossible.
  - aaronbrethorst 17y ago
    Maybe their previous position was entirely accurate for older versions of IE.
    - TeHCrAzY 17y ago
      http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE It is possible, but a bit of a hack.
      - est 17y ago
        better version IE 1,2,3,4,5,5.5,6,7,8+Dev Toolbar http://finalbuilds.edskes.net/iecollection.htm http://finalbuilds.edskes.net/iecollection.htm
        aaronbrethorst 17y ago
        this is slick. thanks for the link; i have never seen this before!
grandalf 17y ago
This is a step in the right direction but it obsoletes any windows/IE computer earlier than Vista SP2. Considering the amount of resources used by Vista, I think all speed improvements of this browser would only be realized if you're already dedicating lots of processing power to OS overhead.
- sid0 17y ago
  While the hardware acceleration will only be available on modern Windows, there's a good chance IE9 will come out for Windows XP too. (The lack of hardware acceleration on non-modern Windows is something that Firefox will face too once it flips on the D2D switch by default.) > I think all speed improvements of this browser would only be realized if you're already dedicating lots of processing power to OS overhead. That's really not how operating systems work. CPU and RAM are rather orthogonal.
  - grandalf 17y ago
    That's really not how operating systems work. CPU and RAM are rather orthogonal. 1) click on start menu 2) wait 3 seconds for it to respond and open 3) click on icon for browser 4) wait 15 seconds for it to respond 5) wait 5 seconds for it to render the default home page 6) type in desired url and wait 3 seconds for it to download and render. It doesn't matter if the new IE browser is faster than firefox, since any computer that is powerful enough to run Vista in the first place will probably not take a noticeable amount of time to render a page in Firefox. The above is an example of the vista user experience on a slower computer. That same computer could (running linux) load google chrome and open the desired page in 1 second each.
    - sid0 17y ago
      > It doesn't matter if the new IE browser is faster than firefox, since any computer that is powerful enough to run Vista in the first place will probably not take a noticeable amount of time to render a page in Firefox. Probably not, but hardware acceleration makes a ton of difference in responsiveness (it pushes a lot of things below that 100ms barrier where you feel that things happen instantaneously). Try out a Firefox 3.7a3pre nightly on a Windows Vista SP2 or 7 computer, enable Direct2D, and see for yourself.
MikeCapone 17y ago
How about making a Mac version? I probably wouldn't use it, but the more browser choice, the better (healthy competition pushing everybody to do better). Apple has Safari for windows, it would make sense for Microsoft to do something similar...
- MrRage 17y ago
  Why would it make sense? Would any Mac user use IE? How many Windows users use Safari? Not many I'd wager.
  - MikeCapone 17y ago
    The whole point is that browsers should stand on their own and not be part of the OS, no? If IE becomes really good, it should be judged on its own merit and maybe some people on the Mac platform would want to use it. I dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy, but I know that when there's healthy competition on a platform, everybody wins. I'd love to see the IE guys try to make a better browser than others, and not just on windows.
nreece 17y ago
IE 9 will not support XP. Now take that to the IE 6 user-base. Ref: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5572&tag=col1;post-5572 http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5572&tag=col1;post-5...
dirtbox 17y ago
All this highlights is their complacency up until now. Competition should never have been the thing that stirred them into making a browser that wasn't dire, it should have been a matter of course. Imagine if they had to fight for operating system dominance.
narendranag 17y ago
Here's what would make my day: an announcement by MS that they will force-upgrade all users to IE9 from IE6,7 and 8. Goodbye clunky images + css + javascript hacks, hello lovely design.
tdmackey 17y ago
hmm, in viewing HN from the IE9 platform preview it centers all the text which is promising ;)
InclinedPlane 17y ago
Aside from all the meta-discussion about MS and IE in the abstract, my opinion on this platform preview: I'm extremely unimpressed. Judging by the absence of a location bar and settings menu this appears to be more of a demo than a pre-release application preview. This is very disappointing when measured against MS's other previews, betas, etc. (Windows betas and RCs, Visual Studio CTPs, even previous IE betas) and outright pathetic compared to, say, Chrome's dev-channel releases (which are release quality by the standards of this industry). Speed was unimpressive on my system compared to Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Acid3 performance was also unimpressive as I had to force IE9 document mode via the debug menu in order to achieve even a score of 39. One of the important aspects of the acid tests is that the browser be in the default configuration when visiting the test page. Just because there's some magical "improve standards compliance" button on IE doesn't mean that the browsing experience for everyday users will increase, somehow every other browser manages this problem just fine, yet IE always struggles with it. Perhaps they'll fix it by release, if we're lucky. The supported features are refreshing but nothing that multiple other browsers haven't supported for a while. Once again IE is trying to play catch-up and once again they are doing so slower than the other browsers are pulling ahead. It's good to see IE improving its feature-set, standards compliance, and performance, but at this point IE9 is racing the clock against irrelevancy. By the time IE9 is released its implementation of several years old technology may seem quaint.

86 points by sid0 17y ago

lol Microsoft.

Here's the developer guide: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/ff468705.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/ff468705.aspx

moe 17y ago

Interested in checking out the new Web platform capabilities of Internet Explorer 9? Honest question? No. Not at all. All I am interested in is: Can you please ship it with chrome frame pre-installed.

n8agrin 17y ago
Browser competition is a good thing. If Microsoft released the fastest standards compliant browser and became the industry leader (from a standars perspective) tomorrow I would be happy. I don't care what OS you run on your computer or which browser you choose. All I care about is my bits are displayed as intended and I find that IE makes that task significantly harder to accomplish. If my life could be made easier by a new MS browser, and other's browsing experiences improved, I'm all for it.
- powrtoch 17y ago
  Sure. But there's a much simpler and more foolproof way to get your bits displayed properly to everyone who buys a new windows machine (which of course are just about the only non-developers who will get ie9): Scrap IE, start shipping windows with Opera, Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Let the crappy existing versions die off slowly and focus on improving the mediocre operating system rather than reinventing the wheel with a consistently inferior and uncooperative browser.
  - sid0 17y ago
    > (which of course are just about the only non-developers who will get ie9): Why so?
    - powrtoch 17y ago
      Historical evidence. Firstly, IE users are less likely to care enough to upgrade a browser, for the same reason they didn't care enough to look for a better one. Namely, it doesn't really matter to them and they're unaware of why it should. Secondly, Microsoft is a lot less pushy about software updates than other browser vendors. IE7 came out 4 years ago (and then IE8 two years later), but despite what an enormous improvement it was to IE6, we're only now seeing IE6 finally start to fade away. IE6 usage didn't drop below half of all IE usage until around June 2009. By comparison, Firefox 3 had more than double the usage of FF2 within 3 months of its debut. Chrome shows even better (in fact, absurdly fast) adoption rates. All this source StatCounter: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200807-201003 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200807... Add in corporations hesitant to update IE in the workplace, and you've got the IE stick-around-forever problem.
      - sid0 17y ago
        But that still doesn't provide evidence that people buying a new computer are the only non-developers who will get IE9. You need to demonstrate that upgrades from IE6 to 7/8 are non-existent. In fact, I'd say the fact that IE7 has dropped below IE8 is evidence that people on IE do upgrade, and that the people on IE6 are only on it because they need it.
        powrtoch 17y ago
        I'm counting on common sense interpretations here. Obviously it's not the case that there are NO EXAMPLES of 7->8 upgrades. I'm suggesting that it's very much an exception rather than a rule. I don't have the energy to dig up the stats demonstrating a correlation between purchases of new computers and browser version market share. It's probably there, maybe it isn't. Whether that's the cause is immaterial though because the point remains: new IE versions tend to be adopted very slowly. And I would point out the enthusiastic reception of Win7 (comes with IE8) compared to the chilly reception of Vista (came with IE7) as evidence that browser adoption is correlated with sales of new computers (or more specifically, new OS's. Keep in mind a lot of Vista machines were sold with downgrade packs). And yes, Chrome auto-updates. That's part of my point about Microsoft being less pushy with their updates than other vendors.
- moe 17y ago
  Not sure why I got bumped to -4, did we suddenly fall in love with IE? I'm also not sure how you fit "browser competition is a good thing" and microsoft in the same sentence. I still have scars from IE5-7, and currently collecting new ones from IE8, which is less prone to screwing up, but also more subtile when it does (intermittent white page due to js bugs? lovely..). As far as I am concerned I stand by what I wrote: I wish it would just go away (pipe dream) and I'm not interested in the slightest in what new bugs and misfeatures they introduce this time. I'll have to deal with them soon enough anyways, unless someone finds a way to trigger a force-install of chrome frame without user interaction... (I'll take a gecko-frame or even opera-frame as well, if those exist - none of them have ever given me nearly the misery of trident)

Auzy 17y ago

Certainly looks as though Microsoft are finally willing to try to take on the competition (they are actually flaunting the progress of ACID3, and posting benchmarks). In fact, its interesting that their new engine is so fast. Its going to get very interesting, especially since personally, I couldn't give a damn about supporting unfinalised standards the ACID3 tests (in fact, one of the ACID3 tests can't be passed 100% of the time anyway). Speed is important, and since a lot of applications use the IE engine, maybe this will speed up some other applications as well. Btw, I can confirm their sunspider benchmark.. Their preview does run faster than Firefox on my system (although, unsure if my addons are having an impact on that, or external causes). As its just a preview, it should only be taken with a grain of salt anyway..

ecaron 17y ago
I don't think anyone has ever questioned Microsoft's ability to take on the competition - or even beat the competition as they did in the Netscape wars. Rather, I think we're permanently jaded against the IE browser not because of its technical merits or flaws, but because they let it go stagnant. Knowing that people using Windows 2000 are stuck with IE6 - despite the fact that their machine still suits their needs - is why we need to continue to push people away from IE. Even if IE9 is amazing. Firefox 3.6 STILL works on Windows 2000 (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requirements.html http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requirements.htm...). Until Microsoft releases a browser we know isn't going to put us in the "I can't upgrade past IE6" situations that we hear about, I'll proudly support everything that isn't Internet Explorer. (Note: Has anyone ever tried to submit a bug report to Microsoft? It is impossible! I even put together http://crashie8.com/ http://crashie8.com/ as a proof of concept, and I still can't get anyone to acknowledge the problem!)
- pavs 17y ago
  I think we should all take a moment to thank Google for making Chrome and get all browser developers to get out of their collective ass and do something to fix their broken browsers. The amount of improvement and works going on the top 4 browsers since Chrome was released is really amazing. IE 7-8 were half-assed job to counter Firefox's popularity. Even Firefox is getting their act together and their next release is very much inspired by chrome.

smokinn 17y ago

It'll be nice to see independent verification of their SunSpider benchmarks but if they hold up that's very good news.

jf 17y ago

Nice work zaatar and team!

oneplusone 17y ago

Finally, somebody implemented border-radius without throwing a prefix in front of it. I get tired of all the -moz and -wekit prefixes.

ugh 17y ago
I think Opera beat them to it.
- rimantas 17y ago
  They did. Opera has this since Presto 2.3 (Opera 10.50 comes with 2.5)
armandososa 17y ago
Does this mean that webkit and mozilla are going to drop the prefix? What's the point of the prefixes to begin with?
- smackfu 17y ago
  Because you get yelled at for doing a blink tag, but it's fine to do a moz-blink tag. The problem is when browser #2 wants to implement blink. They shouldn't use your prefix, so they now have webkit-blink. And the HTML writer now needs to sniff the browser. Progress?
  - gjm11 17y ago
    These are CSS properties, not HTML elements. There is no need to sniff; you just provide multiple properties. p.wibble { -moz-blink: slowly; -webkit-blink: 10%; -ie9-blink: "Microsoft.XML.Autocompositor(alpha=99,blinkrate=14692,emulate-old-ie-versions=false,true,true,false)#ie9" } or whatever. (In practice everyone who provides these properties does so in a very similar manner, so it's easier than the above pseudosnippet suggests.)
- youngian 17y ago
  The point is that those things are/were still in "draft" specification and so it's asking for trouble to implement them in a way that will prevent changes to the final spec. I'm sure once the standards are finalized the prefixes will be dropped (or really, deprecated).

sid0 17y ago

It's certainly fast, but the lack of <canvas> is disappointing.

n8agrin 17y ago
But it should support SVG. I'm not convinced canvas is the greatest in-browser rendering option for many of the things web devs want to do anyhow like click handlers and simple animations. There is a reason why many browser-based vis libraries are switching over to SVG (and VML in older IEs).
- mcantelon 17y ago
  There's always been separate use-cases for pixel and vector-based graphics.
- sketerpot 17y ago
  Even so, canvas is useful and I'd really like to have it available.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

justinph 17y ago

No mention of WOFF? So we're stuck with EOT?

latch 17y ago

I hate to be conspiracy-theory-guy, but deep down, I feel that the rate at which IE becomes compliant is tied to Silverlight's market penetration. The move to open standards on the web will only truly come when MS feels like it has sufficient control over a different proprietary technology.

dutchflyboy 17y ago
Uhm, off-topic much? I mean, Silverlight isn't linked to IE9 in any way. Silverlight is a plugin, like flash. It will work in Firefox too, but isn't installed by default. I don't see the link between IE9 (which gives web developpers the possibility to make interactive websites WITHOUT plugins) and Silverlight (a plugin).

twism 17y ago

Anyone know what the word is on WebSockets?

stanleydrew 17y ago
As far as I know Chrome is still the only browser that supports WebSockets. Can anyone refute this? FF 3.7 maybe?
- twism 17y ago
  FF 3.7 is the targeted release for WebSockets.
  - stanleydrew 17y ago
    Isn't there a release candidate out for FF 3.7? If so can you confirm that WebSockets support is in there?
    - Perceval 17y ago
      There's an Alpha3 'technology preview' of Fx3.7: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/3.7a3-candidates/ I don't know if WebSockets is included or not.
ovi256 17y ago
Websockets are something I long dreamed about : bidirectional HTTP, no more stupid AJAX polling tricks.
- btipling 17y ago
  Yeah now you just have to deal with this stupidity: Send the following bytes: 0D 0A did that work? ok send the following bytes: 57 65 62 53 6F 63 6B 65 74 2D 50 72 6F 74 6F 63 6F 6C 3A 20 etc: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol-54 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol...

iaskwhy 17y ago

From the FAQ: Does Platform Preview replace my current Internet Explorer? No, it does not, though it does share some settings with your existing Internet Explorer intsallation. One of the best features of Platform Preview is that it installs side-by-side with earlier versions of Internet Explorer and any other browser(s) on your computer.

thechangelog 17y ago
While I'm glad to see this, it flies in the face of their previous position that side-by-side IE was impossible.
- aaronbrethorst 17y ago
  Maybe their previous position was entirely accurate for older versions of IE.
  - TeHCrAzY 17y ago
    http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE It is possible, but a bit of a hack.
    - est 17y ago
      better version IE 1,2,3,4,5,5.5,6,7,8+Dev Toolbar http://finalbuilds.edskes.net/iecollection.htm http://finalbuilds.edskes.net/iecollection.htm
      - aaronbrethorst 17y ago
        this is slick. thanks for the link; i have never seen this before!

grandalf 17y ago

This is a step in the right direction but it obsoletes any windows/IE computer earlier than Vista SP2. Considering the amount of resources used by Vista, I think all speed improvements of this browser would only be realized if you're already dedicating lots of processing power to OS overhead.

sid0 17y ago
While the hardware acceleration will only be available on modern Windows, there's a good chance IE9 will come out for Windows XP too. (The lack of hardware acceleration on non-modern Windows is something that Firefox will face too once it flips on the D2D switch by default.) > I think all speed improvements of this browser would only be realized if you're already dedicating lots of processing power to OS overhead. That's really not how operating systems work. CPU and RAM are rather orthogonal.
- grandalf 17y ago
  That's really not how operating systems work. CPU and RAM are rather orthogonal. 1) click on start menu 2) wait 3 seconds for it to respond and open 3) click on icon for browser 4) wait 15 seconds for it to respond 5) wait 5 seconds for it to render the default home page 6) type in desired url and wait 3 seconds for it to download and render. It doesn't matter if the new IE browser is faster than firefox, since any computer that is powerful enough to run Vista in the first place will probably not take a noticeable amount of time to render a page in Firefox. The above is an example of the vista user experience on a slower computer. That same computer could (running linux) load google chrome and open the desired page in 1 second each.
  - sid0 17y ago
    > It doesn't matter if the new IE browser is faster than firefox, since any computer that is powerful enough to run Vista in the first place will probably not take a noticeable amount of time to render a page in Firefox. Probably not, but hardware acceleration makes a ton of difference in responsiveness (it pushes a lot of things below that 100ms barrier where you feel that things happen instantaneously). Try out a Firefox 3.7a3pre nightly on a Windows Vista SP2 or 7 computer, enable Direct2D, and see for yourself.

MikeCapone 17y ago

How about making a Mac version? I probably wouldn't use it, but the more browser choice, the better (healthy competition pushing everybody to do better). Apple has Safari for windows, it would make sense for Microsoft to do something similar...

MrRage 17y ago
Why would it make sense? Would any Mac user use IE? How many Windows users use Safari? Not many I'd wager.
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  The whole point is that browsers should stand on their own and not be part of the OS, no? If IE becomes really good, it should be judged on its own merit and maybe some people on the Mac platform would want to use it. I dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy, but I know that when there's healthy competition on a platform, everybody wins. I'd love to see the IE guys try to make a better browser than others, and not just on windows.

nreece 17y ago

IE 9 will not support XP. Now take that to the IE 6 user-base. Ref: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5572&tag=col1;post-5572 http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5572&tag=col1;post-5...

dirtbox 17y ago

All this highlights is their complacency up until now. Competition should never have been the thing that stirred them into making a browser that wasn't dire, it should have been a matter of course. Imagine if they had to fight for operating system dominance.

narendranag 17y ago

Here's what would make my day: an announcement by MS that they will force-upgrade all users to IE9 from IE6,7 and 8. Goodbye clunky images + css + javascript hacks, hello lovely design.

tdmackey 17y ago

hmm, in viewing HN from the IE9 platform preview it centers all the text which is promising ;)

InclinedPlane 17y ago

Aside from all the meta-discussion about MS and IE in the abstract, my opinion on this platform preview: I'm extremely unimpressed. Judging by the absence of a location bar and settings menu this appears to be more of a demo than a pre-release application preview. This is very disappointing when measured against MS's other previews, betas, etc. (Windows betas and RCs, Visual Studio CTPs, even previous IE betas) and outright pathetic compared to, say, Chrome's dev-channel releases (which are release quality by the standards of this industry). Speed was unimpressive on my system compared to Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Acid3 performance was also unimpressive as I had to force IE9 document mode via the debug menu in order to achieve even a score of 39. One of the important aspects of the acid tests is that the browser be in the default configuration when visiting the test page. Just because there's some magical "improve standards compliance" button on IE doesn't mean that the browsing experience for everyday users will increase, somehow every other browser manages this problem just fine, yet IE always struggles with it. Perhaps they'll fix it by release, if we're lucky. The supported features are refreshing but nothing that multiple other browsers haven't supported for a while. Once again IE is trying to play catch-up and once again they are doing so slower than the other browsers are pulling ahead. It's good to see IE improving its feature-set, standards compliance, and performance, but at this point IE9 is racing the clock against irrelevancy. By the time IE9 is released its implementation of several years old technology may seem quaint.