
Internet Explorer 9 launches tonight, we've got your early look - solipsist
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/14/internet-explorer-9-launches-tonight-weve-got-your-early-look/
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drdaeman
Yeah, "the next-generation Web" of the previous generations. There's no
support for:

— HTML5 forms. More precisely, <input>s with types of "search", "tel", "url",
"email", "datetime" (even more, anything of /^date.*/), "number", "range",
"color"; <select>, <datalist>, <progress> and <meter> elements. Also no
support for :valid, :invalid, :optional and :required selectors.

— "placeholder" (!), "autofocus", "autocomplete" and "multiple" attributes.

— HTML5 history API (let's all enjoy the hashbang kludges)

— HTML5 drag and drop

— HTML5 app cache

— Microdata

— IndexedDB

— FileReader and FileWriter APIs

— WebSockets

— WebGL

— Web Workers

(Source: <http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/ie/115460/#comment_3739820> [in Russian].
The list contains only features that are supported by at least one browser.)

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noibl
Is it possible to move the tabs onto their own line? I rarely browse with
fewer than 10 tabs open so having them share space with the address bar and
buttons would be pretty awkward. Likewise, long addresses are obscured by the
fixed width of the 'one box' even when all the space to the right is vacant.
Can that be resized?

I would like to be able to just try it out instead of asking basic questions
but first I would have to make a Windows 7 VM etc. etc.

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zaatar
Yes, dedicated tab row was one of the #1 feature requests, and indeed, was
fixed for the IE9 Release Candidate.

See: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/15/user-
experienc...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/15/user-experiences-
listen-learn-refine.aspx)

~~~
noibl
That apparently kills both birds.[1] Thanks for the link. :)

[1] [http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/IEBlog/2011/Feb/uellr-
imag...](http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/IEBlog/2011/Feb/uellr-image7.png)

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thenduks
Feels to me like a browser that isn't cross-platform doesn't have much legs in
2011 (at least Safari can pull the WebKit card)... I use multiple platforms
every day and it just doesn't make much sense to use a different browser on
each one.

I guess they'll get the current IE8 users, hopefully even convince some people
to get new machines or upgrade to W7 -- all good for a web developer. But as
an actual competing browser? I don't think so.

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flexterra
If this makes people get off IE6 & IE7 it's good enough for me.

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Samuel_Michon
It will mostly get users off IE8. Users of older versions of IE who still
haven't upgraded to IE8 (2 years old!) simply can't or don't want to upgrade.

Also, most IE users run Windows XP. IE9 will never be available for Windows
XP, so those users are stuck (unless they switch to a third party browser or
buy a new computer).

~~~
makecheck
If Microsoft were truly committed to moving people off of IE6, they would have
a modern solution specifically for XP users. They screwed it up, they fix it.

3rd party developers target older OS versions all the time; Microsoft should
be in a great position to support XP. And even if they don't want to, they
should still have an official stance that encourages the use of _some_ modern
browser, even if it means they have to suck it up and recommend Firefox for XP
users. Better still, issue a service pack for XP that installs Firefox
automatically; then IT groups can be sure that a modern browser is on all
their machines, and internal apps can finally target the modern browser and
require its use.

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likpok
No other operating system manufacturer (outside of the embedded realm) does
anything near what Microsoft does for XP. Suggesting that it is a failing of
the IE team to not support XP is a little disingenuous with the rest of what
people say. I see very few people complaining that Apple killed the PowerPC
line, and XP far predates that.

Microsoft has been pushing people off of XP for ages, but many people hold the
misapprehension that XP is 'good enough' in some sense. This is further
complicated by the fact that most people who still use XP don't want the
system to change. If Microsoft were to release such a service pack, the first
thing that nearly all of the IT groups of whom you speak would do would be to
block it from automatically installing. Those that wouldn't would have already
set up the base install to have a modern browser (IE8, Firefox, Chrome).

~~~
noibl
> No other operating system manufacturer (outside of the embedded realm) does
> anything near what Microsoft does for XP.

Who are you including in that category apart from Apple? Compatibility with
30-year-old OS features is often considered a worthwhile goal among current
UNIX descendants.

> I see very few people complaining that Apple killed the PowerPC line, and XP
> far predates that.

Is WinXP compatible with x86 and x86-64? Is Win7 not compatible with those? I
don't see what point you're making by mentioning CPU architectures. And the
'universal binary' made this switch largely transparent to owners of either
CPU.

> many people hold the misapprehension that XP is 'good enough' in some sense

Leaving aside the accuracy of this, surely if it is a misapprehension then it
should cause problems only for those people. Instead Microsoft have made it
clear that it's a problem for their own profit growth and that those users
need to be coerced into upgrading.

But even that's being done in a half-assed way that makes it more of a problem
for web developers. Which other Microsoft titles are being developed to be XP-
incompatible? Certainly not Office 2010. Aside: backwards compatibility was
largely maintained under Mac OS Classic from 1984 to 2001. The break, coming
with OS X, was necessary, not contrived.

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aDemoUzer
Why not compare it against firefox 4, rather than 3.6? Acid: 97 SunSpider:
426.7ms Peacekeeper: 3221 Points

Chrome 12: SunSpider: 417.5ms Peacekeeper: 7030 Points

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noibl
Because it's the stable release, not beta.

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tajddin
I just can't stand the cut-off back button and the odd WPF-inspired font anti-
aliasing. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Otherwise, a decent release.

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thematt
It's refreshing to see them adopt some minimalism in the application, even if
it does look like a ripoff of Chrome.

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tomlin
Except worse looking. Not sure what they were thinking with the tabs. For
higher contrast, or those with colour deficiency it is hard to see which tab
is selected. I noticed this in the beta, but had hoped it would be ironed out
before the final. _sigh_

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dholowiski
More importantly, when will iFixit have their teardown?

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thematt
Does the big back button on the left bother anybody else? It's layering looks
horrible. Either bring it to the front or decrease it's size so the bottom
isn't cut off.

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noibl
It looks a bit wrong but it's an effective use of space (creating emphasis and
a comfortable click zone while also conserving real estate).

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cookiecaper
I'd like to see them compare against Firefox 4 RC instead of Firefox 3.6.15.
Firefox 4 is going to be final in the next couple of weeks or sooner, and IE9
is not final yet either. A comparison against Fx4 and Chrome 10 would be much
more representative of the current state.

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Samuel_Michon
Alright, I applied some Google-fu to find out how FF4 RC1 scores on the same
tests that Engadget mentioned in the IE9 article.

FF4 RC1 scores 97/100 on the Acid3 test, IE9 scores 95/100. We don't need to
go into the accuracy of the rendering, they both fail. It would be nice if
they caught up, Apple has been shipping an Acid3 compliant browser for 21
months already. Then there's SunSpider, the results of which differ as
different hardware is used, but in all the reports that I found, IE9 scores
better than FF4 RC1. And lastly, there's Peacekeeper. FF4 RC1 is dead last in
that test, by quite a long ways.

So it didn't really matter whether Engadget used FF 3.6 or FF4 in their tests.

UPDATE: IE9 is out now: <http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/>

