Last night, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 unto the world, and the reviews have been … surprisingly good.
Internet Explorer 9 is surprisingly competitive across the board. Zippy browsing speeds, minimalist layout, and innovative features make this not only the best version of IE to date, but catapult Internet Explorer back into the browser wars.
Microsoft’s main selling point behind IE9 is the browser’s ability to tell the graphics card in the PC to speed up to render graphics and motion more quickly. “IE9 is the first browser to take full advantage not only of the CPU but also the GPU (graphics processing unit),” said Microsoft’s Ari Bixhorn.
Other browser makers all do some form of hardware acceleration in their producrs, but Microsoft seems to be focusing on it more than the others, and believes it knows how to rev up the CPU and GPU to dramatically increase site performance better than its competitors.
This browser feels faster than the previous IE8 and neck and neck with Chrome.
There’s one group of Microsoft customers who almost certainly won’t like IE9, however: Windows XP users. IE9 is only available for Windows 7 and Vista, and they’re never getting IE9.
If you’re interested in checking it out, IE9 is available for download at http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/#/download.
