Internet Explorer 9 (9.00.8073.6010) Review

In anticipation of release candidate of IE9, a Russian website Winreview.ru has posted the screenshots of RC 9.00.8073.6010 and gave a first glimpse how the final version of the browser will look like when it is released. I tried using Google Translate app but Russians use too much slang, so I went ahead and translated from Russian (yay, my bilingual nature may actually be useful):

Internet Explorer 9.00.8073.6010 (WIN7_IE9_Partner.110113-2300)

Following the leak of pre-RC 9.0.8027.6000 the development community is getting little bored in anticipation of a new browser. In fact, the excitement is over and the only place you can get the latest and greatest on IE9 is their official blog where a few developers from the IE team occasionally post small news. Therefore, we decided to enlighten your day, and publish a small review of the most recent build of Internet Explorer 9.00.8073.6010 (WIN7_IE9_Partner.110113-2300).

From the list of IE9 builds you can get that the most recent build 9.00.8073.6003. 6010-I is certainly a service pack to the 6003^rd with the corrected errors but visually is not any different than the previous version:

But very different from the public beta available to download from the official site of Microsoft.

Interface

First, the updated 9.00.8073.6010 RC Escrow lost explicit design flaws. Navigation buttons are now placed neatly on the left, as if on a ruller:

unlike in the sloppy public beta:

Bold frame panel under the navigation buttons which previously made a pretty bad initial impression is now eliminated all together in the 9.00.8073.6010 having the user focus on a web page, not the browser, sort of implying that the final product is almost there.

Let’s now glance on the address bar near which there still ton of tabs signifying open pages. Tabs now look much sharper. The active tab stands out of the rest of light gray fellow tabs:

For comparison, here are the tabs from the public beta version:

Generally, as a whole, the entire upper part of the Internet Explorer window has undergone cosmetic improvement and became more compact although to be honest, much nicer. This build of Internet Explorer 9.00.8073.6010 (WIN7_IE9_Partner.110113-2300) contains an updated version of New Tab (new tab that contains frequently visited sites, similar to that of Chrome, and Opera).
Type in 9.00.8073.6010

The Public Beta View:

Here we noticed:

• a new background, which is usually vertical gradient from blue to white.
• thumbnails (square corners to match the new style tabs) of frequently visited sites
• from the shortcut menu of frequently visited sites you’ll see “Never show this website” is changed to a more logical “Remove this page”

In Public Beta:

• different order of controls, such as “remove sites” has been moved from the top down.
• a new link “Recommended Sites”. This shortcut is:

Different InPrivate
In 9.00.8073.6010

In Public Beta:

With hardware acceleration enabled browser displays the fonts more smoothly and installing required here is an update.

Functionality

In 9.00.8073.6010 build the “Quick Tabs” feature is not working upon the pressing CTRL + Q, for some reason. This has previously been included in the settings (browser restarted):

In latest build this mode is broken, while in the public beta when you press CTRL + Q, a window with thumbnails of currently open sites would open:

Oh well. The good news is that the feature “Show menu” works without the symbolic dance with a tambourine. By pressing the ALT key => View menu, you can tell your browser to always display the menu and it will stay on however long you want it to:

Download Manager displays Speed straight in the window. This is one of the most welcome features which currently is not available for beta users:

Most recent build is acid3 by 95% similar to a public beta result.

In tests HTML5 9.00.8073.6010 managed to break away from the public beta, and shows 116 points against 96 for the latter.
9.00.8073.6010

Public beta

Alas, the test conditions don’t allow me to measure the browser performance similar to Sun Spider. Nevertheless, on the Jan 28th the test version of RC-IE9 will go live for “testn’ play”.

Finally, I’d like to note that we weren’t able to get tabs underneath the address bar, not in IE 9.00.8073.6010 where they’re not available by default and assumes a lot of tweaks. There are three thousand numbers of keys in the registry but I couldn’t find them. However, stay tuned, we’ll know much more in the IE9 public testing version.

Which is Which? Wapplications

Great excerpts from Keynote Benchmark on The Mobile Dilemma

Which is Which? Which is the app, and which the mobile website? The New York Times app (left) gives users an extra headline or so, and navigation/function options at the bottom, but the mobile Website (right) offers more types of information such as stock quotes and weather.

Which is Which? The YouTube “wapplication” an HTML5 website, actually delivers better design than the native iPhone app (left), and more closely mimics the functionality of the main YouTube Web site.

Which is Which? The app (left) is a little more colorful, but the content is virtually identical, and the wapplication/mobile Website delivers a little more functionality such as texting.

Mozilla Labs – Open Web Applications

Using web standards such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript in combination of server-side logic and client-side logic, the open web applications should conform to any modern web browser and its engine standards. This is a very interesting space to watch out.

Chrome passed Firefox rumor

“Chrome has overtaken Firefox” is all over the news. Is that right? It’s according to TechMeme’s founder Gabe Rivera, Firefox is no longer THE most popular browser for tech savvy people, Google’s Chrome is. The Chart below indicates the browser share just for TechMeme’s blog.

Net Applications, a leading source of tools and utilities for webmasters says, Yes, Chrome’s market share increased comparing to the past month. In daily tracking, Chrome 6.0 is topping 7% of global browsing share since being released on September 2nd vs. older versions of Chrome that have dropped to near zero global share in the meantime.  I guess Tech34% as Techmeme’s founder suggests.

Internet Explorer drops below 60%

Microsoft’s share of web browser use has dropped to an historic low below 60% for the first time since Internet Explorer 4 passed the beleaguered Netscape back in 1999.