Microsoft has not been shy about applauding the superiority of Internet Explorer 9 to rival browsers, with a focus on the tests made available via the
IE Test Center. But the Redmond company also delivered on various occasions comparisons between
IE9 and competitors in additional testing scenarios such as the JavaScript SunSpider benchmark. The latest comparison was performed by
Mike Swanson, Microsoft Technical Evangelist with the Developer and Platform Evangelism organization, and it involves text rendering.
“During the lead-up to our MIX10 event this spring, I knew that one of the features that Steven Sinofsky and Dean Hachamovitch would show in our day 2 keynote was the hardware-accelerated text quality in IE9. The feature takes advantage of DirectWrite, ClearType, and sub-pixel positioning to improve font quality and readability. This additional precision allows glyphs to start “within” a pixel and not just at their boundaries resulting in more precise and consistent glyph spacing and proportions,” he recalled.
Just take a look at the screenshots included below, courtesy of Swanson. The comparison involves Google Chrome 5.0.375.125, Firefox 3.6.8, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 3 Build 1.9.7.8.74.6000 and Safari 5.0 (7533.16).
“Look at the rendering quality, readability, and positioning of the text. These are unmodified screenshots from the latest versions of the browsers running on Windows 7 with ClearType enabled. All of the text is rendered with the canvas .fillText command and there are no bitmap images…everything is either text or drawn to the canvas with vectors. I encourage you to try similar tests with your own content. I think you’ll be surprised,” Swanson revealed.
Users can of course have a look at the screenshots and draw their own conclusions. At the same time, various releases of IE9, Google Chrome, Firefox, etc. are available for download for all those looking to perform similar tests.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 3 is available for download here.
Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 is available for download here.
Chrome 6.0 Dev is available for download here.
Opera 10.70 Alpha is available for download here.
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