14 DAY TRIAL // The web has been filled with excitement about the launch of the Internet Explorer 9 Beta, the first IE9 release to feature a user interface.
There's plenty to like about the new IE9, both technically and from an usability stand point. But whatever you think of it, innovative as many, many have called it, it is not, and not by any stretch of the imagination.
Plenty of virtual ink has been spilled about the new Internet Explorer 9 and, by now, you're probably familiar with what it brings and maybe even tested it yourself.
The UI has gotten a major revamp, with a focus on space and removing the clutter, a goal reached by Microsoft. IE9 also brings support for HTML5 and other modern web technologies and is faster on all fronts.
No doubt about it, IE9 marks a significant leap over its predecessor and this is the best Internet Explorer ever. However, that's not saying much, Microsoft's track record leaves to be desired.
Titles like "IE9 reinvents the browser" sound nice, but are a bit misleading. The 'issue' is that, even though IE9 performs admirably in almost all aspects, very, very few of the new features have been pioneered by Microsoft.
The user interface is a big improvement over IE8, but it clearly took more than a few cues from its rivals, Google Chrome in particular.
Microsoft says that the goal with the new UI is to make web content front and center and not let the browser get in the way of what users really want. Google used pretty much the same words when it revealed the first Chrome beta in 2008.
Another touted feature in IE9 are Pinned Sites which enables you to create a shortcut to any site or web app in the Windows taskbar. It's certainly a useful feature, especially now that web apps are becoming more and more like desktop apps.
What Microsoft doesn't mention though is that Google Chrome had the very same feature since launch. Firefox also has a similar feature, but it requires an add-on.
In terms of usability, the IE9 One Box is a probably the biggest new feature. The unified address bar and search box offers the functionality of both but also serves suggestions from the bookmarks, browsing history and even the search engine. Very much like the Omnibox, another feature Chrome launched with, and Firefox's Awesome Bar to a lesser degree.
Smaller features include detachable tabs, for easier management, and a "new tab" page with shows the most visited sites. Again, useful features, and again, things that Chrome, Firefox and Opera all have had for quite some time.
IE9 finally comes with a very useful and intuitive download manager. It shows your most recent transfers, enables you to search through them or open any of the files. But if you've been using Firefox for the past half a decade or so, it will probably look familiar.
So, the user-facing features are all great, just not something we haven't seen before. But what about under the hood.
Arguably, the biggest single feature in IE9 is support for HTML5. The proposed web standard is the basis of the modern web and is set to become used extensively.
HTML5 support in IE9 is great, since it finally brings the Microsoft browser in line with all major browsers out there, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari and the technology is now supported by the browsers that make up roughly 99 percent of the market.
But, this is Microsoft catching up, not leading the way. And, as you'll see in a comparison coming soon to Softpedia, IE9's support for HTML5 is a bit lacking.
Another big technological improvement in IE9 is the new JavaScript engine. Testing has shown that it is clearly competitive, enough to overtake Firefox 4 beta, but falls behind Chrome and Opera. Again, you'll have to wait for the full report for all the numbers. UPDATE: The test is now live.
And finally, we get to what has got to be IE9's most lauded feature, hardware acceleration. Microsoft boasts that its browser is the first to bring "full" hardware acceleration.
There's nothing wrong with the marketing people doing what they know best and making the browser look good. But the statement can be a bit misleading.
That's because both Firefox 4 and Chrome already have hardware acceleration that is pretty much on par with what IE9 has to offer.
Microsoft says that its implementation is the best since it accelerates all of the elements of a page. When the company first announced the feature, no browser out there had decent hardware acceleration support.
But thanks to fast pace development, by the time the IE9 beta landed, its rivals had pretty much caught up. Both Firefox and Chrome offer a hardware accelerated canvas as well as compositing.
However, IE9 offers the most complete solution at this point. While the technology is pretty much done in IE9, Mozilla still has a lot of work ahead of it, which should be finished by the time Firefox 4 lands.
The latest Chrome 7 builds also offer extended hardware acceleration support, but it is not enabled by default. Of the three browser makers, Google is the farthest behind, but you can expect much better support by the time Google Chrome 7 final lands, early next month, or in Chrome 8 at the latest.
In terms of performance, Chrome 7 is pretty much on par with IE9 at this point, in Microsoft's own tests, but Firefox 4 lags inexplicably behind. We've run all browsers through a number of hardware acceleration tests and the results will be available in a comparison review coming soon.
The point of all of this is not to make IE9 look bad. Microsoft should be proud of its product as it is the first competitive browser it has had for the better part of a decade. It shows that the company is taking the web seriously.
The point also isn't to make it seem like Microsoft just "borrows" from everyone else. A good feature should be implemented, regardless of who though of it first. By building on the best ideas from all of the people involved, the entire market benefits.
However, you can't call your product innovative, revolutionary and whatnot when most of your new features draw heavily from existing products. And you can't claim to be the first to offer a technology, when evidence shows that is not the case.
And, while a company can be forgiven for doing this, technology journalists making these claims, either out of ignorance or blind faith in Microsoft, or maybe for some other reasons, shouldn't.
