Edudemic

Topics: ie9, internet explorer, microsoft

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Microsoft has just announced the newest iteration of Internet Explorer. IE9, which obviously stands for Internet Explorer version 9, is flawed. It would a very helpful browser if this were 2009. Sadly, it’s not. Here’s a quick PRO and CON list for IE9 courtesy of a friend / someone on the Google Chrome team:

PROS

• GPU acceleration
• inline SVG

CONS

• no css transforms
• no transitions
• no gradients
• no animations
• no flexbox

If you’re a geeky teacher or student, these things probably matter to you. If you’re an everyday web user, they probably don’t. That being said, Microsoft is filled with smart and technically capable employees able to write the next generation of code. Instead, they seem to hamstring the IE team by not allowing important features like CSS transforms. These things easily run on Chrome, Firefox, and even Opera. Why not IE9?

If you’re itching to try out the new IE9 (still in beta stage but now available for public download), read these details courtesy of Mashable:

The focus of IE9 is on the “regular consumer,” which may irk those of us who generally have more than 10 or 20 tabs open at any given time. Tabs appear on the right side of the address bar, decreasing the amount of real-estate for tabs. To help decrease tab overload, they are grouped based on different websites within the taskbar.

Perhaps IE9’s biggest selling point is hardware acceleration. The company has used four developer previews to show off the speed of IE9 compared to its competitors. IE9 harnesses the PC’s hardware to accelerate graphics, videos and text. The result is that IE9 is able to render heavy graphic interfaces far better than even Chrome or Firefox.

The IE9 beta is available for download today here. We have had access to the IE9 beta for a while now and will be posting our thoughts and reviews soon. In the meantime, let us know whether you believe Microsoft can get back into the browser game with IE9.

What do you think? Is IE9 a solid browser you will try / use? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter at @edudemic. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say!