IE 9 Hits the Web Running

Internet Explorer 9 has a wealth of outstanding new features for you to discover

Technically, Internet Explorer is not a true web browser; sure, it opens WebPages, but it is so far from being standards compliant that its browsing ability is often called into question. Talk to any web designer or developer and they will complain endlessly about the difficulties in building pages that work with IE.
However, IE9 is significantly different from previous versions of the browser.
The sleek, streamlined and minimalist interface is designed for simple and effective web browsing. With improved hardware acceleration, faster graphics rendering and upgraded subsystems, the backend is designed for truly efficient browsing. Now Microsoft has finally delivered a version of IE that may be a browser of choice rather than one of convenience.

Improved Interface

The new interface is initially a little daunting. At first, you may wonder where everything has gone. Then, you may find yourself wondering why the interfaces of previous IE versions wasted so much space with clutter that you rarely used anyway.
That the menu is still accessible using Alt key is good, that it has not been enhanced to be consistent with Office 2010 is a little disappointing. However, since most of your time is spent browsing, you probably have little need to access the menu. If the sleek interface does not appeal to you, right click over the taskbar reinstate previous taskbars, such as the Favourites and Command Bar.

Improved Performance

IE9 uses the hardware acceleration of a graphics processor, by passing graphics intensive tasks, such as video streaming and rendering straight to the hardware, making it faster to load a page and display content. The use of more efficient subsystems, such as the new Chakra JavaScript engine and tighter integration with the performance improvements underpinning Windows 7, gives 1E9 a major efficiency boost. Generally, add-ons run faster due to the improved Windows performance. However, when Windows detects that an add-on takes too long to load (a configurable setting which defaults to 0.2 seconds); you will receive a notification that the add-on is impacting IE9's performance.

Improved Security

IE9 also provides comprehensive tools to improve your security and privacy when browsing. These include:
*Smart Screen Filter to reduce popups, phishing attacks and malware.
*InPrivate Filtering prevents private information being sent to other sites via the site you are visiting.
*lnPrivate Browsing opens the browser in a 'sandbox' and leaves no trace of where you've been.
*Content Advisor warns about potentially offensive or threatening content.
*Parental Controls are integrated into Windows 7.

The Best of the Rest

It would appear that, rather than remaining arrogantly insular, Microsoft has had a look at what else is out there and improved on the best features of other browsers. These improvements include:
*The minimalist interface (yes, everything could be hidden in IE8, but IE9 loads with just the webpage and address bar).
*Searching directly in the address bar.
*Support for Web Slices and RSS Feeds discovery (which were supported in IE8).
*Tabs, while not new, can be arranged and rearranged in groups.
*Tabs can be pulled out to a new window, returned or moved to another instance of IE.
*Open recently closed tabs.
*Reopen the previous session.
*The download manager which resumes incomplete downloads.
*Opening a new tab displays thumbnails of recent sites.
*Settings are available from an icon rather than splashed over the screen.
*With the Favourites Bar open, drag the icon from the address bar onto the Favourites Bar to pin it there.
*Create Folders on the Favourites Bar.
*The browser doesn't't try to be a complete information management platform and lock you into a particular technology

With the best features from all the other browsers, why not stick with IE?