Tech.
You may have heard, you may have not - Internet Explorer doesn't suck again! If you're anything like me, you've been shying away from the browser more and more since the release of Firefox, and all of it's lovely spawn (Google Chrome.) Over 2 million people have downloaded IE9 Beta within the first day of release - I am one of those people, and here's why it just might take back it's place in history as the best browser around.
Ever since the implementation of 64-bit Operating Systems, those who have used the operating systems which support the full speed of their PCs have had a disadvantage, thanks to Adobe. If you're one of those people, you likely already know I'm talking about Flash Player. Adobe Flash Player is available for the IE9 Beta Platform as a default build this time around however. That's right, you heard it correctly - You can watch YouTube, and play Farmville, all while browsing the web in a 64-bit platform. Why is this important? I'll tell you why that's important!
IE9 Beta is FASTER! Looking for something to juice up your performance, without upgrading the whole PC while surfing? If you've already been using a 64-bit PC, you'll well know that about everything that you can get in 64-bit coding runs twice as fast as the 32-bit version. With Flash Player supported, and HTML5, there is really no reason not to use the 64-bit version if you can. If you're one of the many without 64-bit Operating Systems out there, you will still find yourself loading faster than before with built-in boosts in the coding to help you see content sooner. Something noticable you may find when using IE9 Beta however, is that with this software boost in speed, as your images may render faster, you will see the web page load in blocks. Individualized sections of the code popping up as they are downloaded. This may take a bit of getting used to, but it's normal as your PC sorts out the bits fine, it just looks a bit strange for the first 3 seconds of loading.
Additionally you will find that which makes IE9 Beta faster, also makes it feel more clean, and web-page oriented; A simpler Address Bar. Atop all of your websites, you've always had, and been used to having that address bar, with your home button, back, forward, and other respective buttons. In IE9 Beta, though I didn't imagine it were possible, things look more minimalistic with a signature "Aero" style and transparent buttons that will only change color if you use some new IE9 Beta fun features. Add a bookmark as a taskbar item in W7 and you'll find you've been given an automatic theme for the browser, completely masking the fact that you were using Internet Explorer at all, but rather that you were only going to be going to Facebook - and then maybe some other places after - an interesting approach by Microsoft. This process does end up saving time if you find yourself doing very time-centric operations on your PC. Find yourself going on Facebook and other Social Networking sites in the morning and doing buisness, or paying bills at night? Having two different IE9 Bookmarks on the taskbar can help you by essentially creating two home pages. One step faster than opening and then clicking on your "most viewed websites." Finally where speed is concerned, if you find yourself needing to compare one image to another, or you like to just watch a movie and play a game at the same time, IE9 speeds up your surfing time a bit by allowing you to use the W7 "snap" feature. Remember, drag something to the left or right wall and it automatically takes up 50% of the screen on that side? Well, now IE9 Beta supports that same function with individual tabs. Drag a tab over, and it will automatically open that tab in a new window, snapped to 50% of the screen width. Yum!
On the mixed opinion side...
Understanding that this is not a final version of the browser I can accept this flaw, so long as it is patched. IE9 Beta crashed on me within the first 10 minutes of serious extensive use. On the plus side, it was only one tab. On the negative side, it was only the one page - Again and again. IE9 Beta has an interesting feature in this build; Should your Tab crash, it will automatically close it, and re-open the page, just as it was before. In this case the page itself had 5 Flash-Based ads that happen to simultaneously load, causing the new availablility of Adobe Flash Player in 64-bit to sieze, and crash the tab not once, but twice! I'll stick with this issue as being a rarity in my opinion, and say that this feature of automatic re-opening of a crashed tab is going to be a good feature overall, but it left me feeling quite puzzled.
Another benefit to the IE9 Beta layout is that you have a new favorites button! YAY! Yay? Ok. You can now add a favorite directly to your "favorites bar" with one click. Sounds great, but why am I so "meh" on the feature? When you add a favorite to the favorites bar, it automatically adds the favorite on the left. Every other browser before this, since the beginning of time, has added it on the right. This confused me, and really put me off a little. Does this mean I'll have to reorganize my favorites every time I add a new one to my bar? I'll list this as a mixed opinion for two reasons however. The first - How often am I adding new favorites to the favorites bar? The second - Are the newest items on my favorites bar actually going to be viewed MORE than the older ones, and if so, it looks like Microsoft has shown me the light.
A few things to complain about...
It's been a year since Google has released it's Chrome browser in Beta, and I've had it all along. Here are two features that might have me bouncing back and fourth. Paste-and-Go; Sounds about self explanitory, right? Here's what it does for you. If you find yourself being referred to a website in Chrome, you can easily copy a link that didn't automatically hyperlink (underlined and clickable) then just paste it down in the address bar, and Chrome takes you there. In IE9 Beta, you've got to paste it, then hit the enter (return) button, or click go. Why doesn't IE9 Beta have this feature? The world my never know. Conclusively, for the complaint department, why is there no home page for the most popular sites? In Chrome you can choose to make your Home page an eight-page heads up display of the most visited websites on your PC. It's a handy feature, and on IE9 Beta, you only find yourself on that page when you open a new tab. Sadness.
For those of you reading this, if you find yourself enjoying the idea of Flash Player in a 64-bit browser, or quite enhanced page render times, or many of the other features that find themselves hidden in the IE9 Beta program, I actually have an easy work-around for that last complaint, so start that download now, and get out your notepad.
Make sure that you are on the standard IE9 Beta page, not a Taskbar Bookmark. Click on the gear on the top right, then enter Internet Options. In the Home Page field, type in "about:Tabs" without the quotation marks, then hit the OK button on the bottom. Your new Home Page is now the page you would normally see if you were to open a new tab. (Make this a button, Microsoft!)
Overall rating - 9.2/10 Great speed improvements and Flash support in 64-bits. This really hit the spot, and stays innovative
No comments:
Post a Comment