Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 9 RC

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate. The new RC build includes a Tracking Protection feature, which gives users the option to control what third-party site content can track them when they're online, as well as a new ActiveX filtering option, which allows users to turn on/off ActiveX plug-ins. Best of all, Microsoft has addressed what was arguably the biggest complaint with the new version: if you want your tabs on a separate line from the address box, there's now an option to turn that on from the right click menu at the top of the browser. At the same time, IE9 RC is significantly faster than the beta version. Furthermore, many site rendering issues have been fixed, although we can't say that it's working perfectly. Last but not least, the new build includes hundreds of bug fixes."

Comments

What's MS up to?

[qmaqdk]

There are two strategies MS can play:

• Old school IE: Make own standards to try to vendor lock-in people with the MS platform
• Standards compliant IE: Try to closely adhere to standards and basically render like all the other browsers

I don't think the first strategy will work anymore. People learned what IE6 really costs in the long run. That leaves strategy two. But why bother? It a huge investment development wise, and I don't see them gaining anything from it without the vendor lock-in. So is this just "we want a browser too", or what?

Re:What's MS up to?

[Locke2005]

You're forgetting option 3: Leverage Windows 7 sales by providing a free browser that only works with Windows 7, then telling everybody about all the gaping security holes that exist in all previous versions. Standard MS marketing tactic. Hopefully MS is moving away from the "embrace and extend" philosophy it has used in the past.

Re:What's MS up to?

[dave562]

You almost got it right. It's more like, "Provide a free browser that fully supports .Net so that the thousands of developers who develop against the Microsoft stack (SQL Server, Sharepoint, etc) will have a stable target to aim for."

I get the sense that as a company, Microsoft could give two shits about which browser home users are using. They do care about their developers though. They do care about the enterprise. They need a known platform for their developers to target. That is why they need IE.

Re:What's MS up to?

[dave562]

It hooks into the .Net APIs that are on the client OS. I'm thinking about it in terms of a lot of the applications that I have dealt with over the last couple of years. They all seem to be built in .Net, and leverage IIS and SQL. The client workstations all need .Net and IIS for the application to work.

I think it is a lot like what Google is doing with Chrome. Google has a vision about what applications and services they want to offer via their platform. Rather than pin their hopes on "browser vendors" to adopt specific ways of doing things, Google made their own browser. That browser supports the functionality that Google devs need.

Re:What's MS up to?

[dave562]

Right. Let me go ahead and leave a multi-million dollar firm that does business with the SEC, DoJ and just about every major law firm out there because the best document review and eDiscovery tools are built around a Microsoft stack. I don't care who makes the tools I use. I care that the tools get the job done. FYI - I have a bunch of LAMP and WAMP servers up too.

Re:When can I get the final version?

[uglyduckling]

Why on earth do you want a Mac version? That's like putting a Skoda steering wheel in your BMW.

Canvas.globalCompositeOperation

[QuoteMstr]

Canvas.globalCompositeOperation works now!

April

[mosb1000]

Ok, I read the fucking article, and it's supposed to be available mid-April.

Does it track my Google habits?

[mackil]

From the article: "The new RC build includes a Tracking Protection feature"

Does this preclude my Google search habits?

Re:And it still doesn't support XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Support has to end at some point. It might be time to move forward grandpa.

Why?

My machine works fine on XP. I have all the software I need and Mozilla is still supporting XP versions. And even if they stop, my version of Firefox and Thunderbird work quite fine.

All this needless upgrading of hardware does nothing but increase the hole in my pocketbook and fill in landfill holes in poor Asian countries - and adding to the World's pollution.

There's got to be a time when we have to slow our consumption down; especially with the highly toxic electronics.

--Yours,
Pops

P.S. I kinda like to leave some semblance of an environment to you kids.

Re:let us look at motives

[IronHalik]

I do not see why should Microsoft make a convenient and fast browser?

MS made IE9 so fast as a prank on all slashdotters - right now its pretty much the only browser can render slashdot threads smoothly. So cruel.

Re:When can I get the final version?

[bloodhawk]

The IE and Skoda comparison seems appropriate, But Mac and BMW?? I would have thought 1960's combi van would be a better comparison.

Re:When can I use says...

[cbhacking]

That page is full of BS. They test a lot of things they shouldn't, including redundent and even deprecated drafts of standards, and penalize you for not "supporting" them.

Go to the source, with W3C. According to them, and their compatibility tests, IE9 is doing fine - it's actually ahead of most of the competition on each part of CSS3, for example.

It's also worth noting that IE9's pre-release versions are very careful about supporting non-standard stuff with "standardized" names. For example, IE9 actually does support WebSockets just fine, but because the standard isn't finished, they use a "draft" extension on the name (websocket-draft). This causes sites like caniuse to claim IE9 can't do web sockets, which isn't accurate - other browsers are just implementing a "standard" that isn't.

Ironically enough, this is the kind of behavior that people got so pissed off (quite rightfully) at IE6 for. Just because it isn't MS, does that mean it's now OK to make uup your own standards when they arent' actually standardized yet?

Re:And it still doesn't support XP

[DaFallus]

Whenever you want to upgrade is up to you. If you want to use a 10 year old machine with XP, then more power to you. But why should Microsoft care? Maybe IE9 runs like shit on XP and they don't want to keep their staff busy dealing with all the issues and backwards compatibility for an OS that is definitely in the saturation/decline stage of the product life cycle.

Do you go to Best Buy and complain that they don't sell Beta tapes?

Re:let us look at motives

[Aphrika]

Sorry, you're wrong.

Web 2.0 was pretty much explicitly defined by Microsoft, albeit by accident. AJAX itself a technical underpinning of 2.0 was initiated by the XMLHttpRequestObject that shipped with IE5. This was then adapted by other browsers.

Have a look at the history section here.

As for why Microsoft should release a new version of IE? Well, what else would they do, give up?