IE9 (release candidate)

Anyone using IE9 (RC) that was released a few weeks ago? i've been using it for a few days now, must say it's a huge improvement over IE8, much faster browsing than IE8, most benchmarks show it being faster than Firefox, Chrome and Opera, looks like MS is once again a contender in the browser wars (for the time being anyway).

 

Everyones a contender. Its just a matter of how fast you get knocked out.

I don't care if its faster, my web pages load instantly on sites that have a good connection from me to them. Might care if my computer was slow as a more efficient rendering engine would make my life easier. But thats not the case. I am not liking Firefox 4 but in the end I will upgrade for security. I have yet to try Chrome and im sure its better than it was but what i had to LOL at was everyone I knew who was like chrome this or chrome that, Couldnt use half their websites due to issues. Its been awhile since then but if it works why switch. I cant see anything being faster than instantaneous.

 

I like IE9 RC too, but have experienced problems with GMail which was a disappointment. I posted on one of the MS forums about this. Check out the second last post by the MSFT Moderator. Apparently, this is a problem MS is going to fix with the folks from GMail. Till this happens (I hope it happens with the final release), I am using Chrome.

There are also some minor font rendering issues with IE9 RC on my machine. Otherwise, IE9 looks good and is definitely quite fast - sometimes, I am even tempted to say a tad faster than the Chrome install on my setup.

 

I have installed as well IE9 RC, quite an improvement of IE 8, no problem with gmail,browsing,ect, My IE 8 was subject to quite a few restarts,,, IE9 RC evidently has repaired this glitch.

Cheers
3Fees

 

Agreed ... security is a big reason. What little I saw of firefox 4 the other day was more of a "neither here nor there" impression. What I heard about some of the security improvements was more interesting for me....

And in the same boat I am hopeful that IE9 will also be much more secure since it is the default browser that comes with windows.

 

There are two issues that are keeping me from IE (or maybe more?):

1) No really good adblocker - but simple adblock got much better recently

2) All I get is 3 stupid icons in the right hand corner... -> I don't need a "home button" that I never use, I can never hit the favourites menu because it's some unlabelled tiny icon, and whenever I look for settings it takes me ages to realize where it is... -> I hate icons, they tell me nothing. Yes, a few select Icons I'll recognize, but I need labels - I don't need to remember how a label looks, I'll read what it says, done.
(If anything, the icons on my FF bookmarks toolbar act as separators for the icons)

Other minor issues:
On Firefox I can use Ghostery to block the Stasi aspects of the web no more google analytics or other trackers - good riddance to them. And I can use TrackMeNot to spam google.

 

IE 8's inPrivate browsing (that small icon in the lower right) already block things like google analytics. It actually has the unexpected side effect of blocking quite some ads on this forum as well. No, it doesn't block 100% of the ads but I would say 60% or so.

 

Only problem there, on IE8 that would reset every time to restart the browser... yes, I think that could be changed via the registry... -> but FF is easier in this respect.
(I never checked in IE9 - where is that option hidden anywhere)

That still doesn't solve my icon issue either

Oh, IE does have one significant advantage - I can save websites as a pdf file using Adobe Acrobat Pro.

 

Thats a good one, but doesnt the same application provide a virtual printer that should be usable under any browser? I know it was available with Acrobat 7.

 

-> I have no idea, I could never be bothered to figure it out.
Also, with the Adobe Acrobat Toolbar you can select what you want in your pdf so even on a site filled with space wasting ads, you can save a clean pdf

 

I had Chrome 9, FF 4b10 and IE9 installed on my notebook (for testing purposes).
IE9 is faster than Chrome on sites I usually visit (subjective feeling at least). I had all three of them stack side by side and IE9 loads pages faster. Fonts kerning on Chrome is weird/wrong (but fonts look sharp). You can see this only if you have the same page opened in browsers stacked side by side. I also don't like GUI look somehow. It looks "different" but not "better". Chrome also uses the most memory by far. 160MB for 4 tabs, FF4 89, IE9 93.

FF4b10 is ok, but has blurry fonts (HW accelerated) and also a strange looking kerning. Memory and speed are ok.

IE9 is not perfect like Safari with fonts kerning and blur, but is much better than FF4. Memory and speed are ok.

So in my view IE9 speed + good quality in font rendering (in comparison to Chrome and FF4) is the winner for me. Safari was tested on Mac though, and I didn't install it on my PC.

Render quality and speed put aside, I really like Tracking protection. I used to use Inprivate Filtering in IE8 (with reg tweak to have it always on) and it did miracles on ads and other unwanted website clutter. In my opinion this technology was great but people rarely used it. People prefer addons, which aren't always better. But now in IE9 I use my own list (with repeating code on 3 sites setting) and EasyList (adblock list if I am not mistaken). It works great. No ads, popups, cookies, nothing. I also use WOT addon, just in case I go to some rogue site. I set Privacy a notch higher than default too.

I removed Chrome, FF4 and stayed with a very good IE9 RC. No problems whatsoever.

 

IE9 seems to be quite a step up from IE8 but, for me, it's still no match for Chrome.

I've been testing IE9 RC for a week, doing side by side comparisons and for me, specifically for my typical day-to-day uses, I could never discern any speed or web rendering advantage over Chrome.

But two things did stand out as (again, for me) major disappointments. One, smooth scrolling was nowhere near as smooth as Chrome (Note: I do have the Smooth Scroll extension installed for Chrome). I played around with my Logitech mouse's settings and general mouse settings, I could not get scrolling in IE9 to even come close to Chrome.

Second, no built-in Spell Check. I'm not an inherently bad speller but I'm a fast typist and I always fumble a few strokes here and there so on-the-fly spell check like the one in Chrome, FF and Safari is a must for me. Tried iespell but it's utter garbage and not fully supported. I still don't understand what MSFT's problem is with implementing what is now a common built-in feature in every browser, except for IE.

 

Precisely. I really wonder what reason the IE development team could have for not including a in-built spell-check feature. Or, do they think that sometime in the future, such a feature would become available as an add-on?

 

I use IE so little I had not notice, another vote for spell checker. Just in case I end up with another job where all I can use is IE lol.