back to article Microsoft delivers Google Chrome IE9 beta

Microsoft is offering Internet Explorer 9 beta for download. Although this follows four earlier platform previews, this is the first time the new IE user interface has been shown to the public. Like Google Chrome, IE9 combines the address and search boxes into a single "OneBox". It also integrates with the Windows 7 taskbar, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    LOL...

    Microsoft steals ideas from Chrome that Google stole from Opera.....

    Good to see IE users catching up with things that Opera users have been enjoying for years....

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      And there's the problem.

      Opera users have enjoyed these features. Presumably including the interface. Explains a lot. I'll stick with Firefox 3, and then Firefox 4 after someone gets a skin/theme out that makes it look like 3.

      Too old for this new fangled hibbery jibbery. Take the ribbon bar with you when you go!

      *grumble grumble*...get off my goddamned lawn…*grumble grumble*

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      I'm sorry?

      What idea's did Google "steal" from Opera? One of theses days an Opera fanboy is going to make a Goreian claim that Opera in fact invented the internet. YAWN...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        No, but a few people

        that have significant input on the way the Internet is today, work at Opera, Håkon Wium Lie for example, the creator of CSS,

        Regardless of that, it's the fastest, most standards compliant browser out there, and anyone calling themselves a techie should be using it, simple as that really. Why on earth run privacy dodgy browsers like IE9 and Chome, or bloatfests like Firefox or Safari?>???

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          ODFO...

          The same is true of Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla and Google. As much as you guys like to think, Opera didn't invent the web browser. They weren't the first to do many of the things that are claimed to be copied from it either. And actually, WebKit shits on Presto in terms of compliance with existing **and** emergent standards.

        2. Jason 50
          IT Angle

          Fastest?

          Please stop spreading these lies. Opera is NOT the fastest. Chromes JS Engine still blows everyone out the water. FF3 JS Engine is faster than Opera, with word that FF4 JS Engine is getting an upgrade.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    One word...

    I have one word for I.E. 9

    UGLY

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I disagree...

      I wouldn't say it's ugly, but it does need a little refining. Bear in mind that it is only a first beta. Frankly, so long as it's standards compliant and people use it to replace IE6/7, I couldn't give a monkeys what it looks like!

      1. Al Jones

        It won't replace IE6, because it won't run on XP

        It doesn't matter how good IE9 is, there won't be anyone upgrading from IE6 to IE9. The people still running IE7 on Vista are people who haven't bothered upgrading to IE8, so they probably won't upgrade to IE9 either. IE8 is probably the only browser that is going to see significant replacement numbers.

  3. Asgard
    Big Brother

    This is social engineering tactics...

    @"Like Google Chrome, IE9 combines the address and search boxes into a single "OneBox""

    ... and like Google Chrome, Microsoft hope to capture more searches from people from this move, to find out more about what people are reading.

  4. Mat Child

    Really?

    "Fewer than one third have opened Favourites, fewer than a quarter have pressed the home button"

    really!?

    I must be wierd cos i use them every session either at work or at home.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      So obviously...

      you are part of the the "one third" and the "quarter" that they are referring to! Not weird per se, just a not-so-common user model. If you are involved in IA or UX, that is actually quite useful to know...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      I never use them

      The only time I use favorites is to temporarily save a URL because I can't be bothered to cut and paste into clipboard. The inline auto complete acts as my favorites.

  5. James 12
    Paris Hilton

    chrome

    Why chrome did chrome you chrome add chrome chrome in chrome to chrome very chrome odd chrome places chrome in chrome this chrome article chrome.

    Then fail to mention what Google's browser is called...

    Paris as she is always confused...

    1. Code Monkey

      chrome (small c)

      The word chrome refers to the browser UI (i.e. everything that's not the page you're browsing).

      Just in case you're still struggling, the "i.e." I used does not refer to Internet Explorer.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    well

    Improved ad blocking yet? If not, fail as usual. lol

    1. John 62

      ad blocking?

      My ad-blocker is my brain.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Ad blocking does NOT need a browser specific addon

      I haven't been troubled by ads for years, across different operating systems and browsers. Just get one of the many blocklists available and stick it in your hosts file. Works with all known browsers and doesn't let a few slip through provided they're from the author's pals like a certain well known plugin.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ding

    Yes, but can it run http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/ ?

    1. D@v3

      That's pretty cool

      {EOM}

  8. captain veg Silver badge
    Dead Vulture

    What?

    > Just like in Windows itself, many performance issues in IE are caused by add-ons

    There are add-ons for Windows? How are they distinguishable from applications?

    I await a Google add-on that replaces the kernel with Chrome.

    -A.

    1. John 62
      Jobs Halo

      AV

      I suppose, a lot of slowdown with Windows would be required add-ons, like anti-virus tools.

  9. John 104

    The parallels are unmistakeable

    You know, you are right. This statement reminds me of how much Google Chrome is like IE and FF. As in, oh yah, a browser. Welcome to the party...

  10. Anomalous Cowturd
    Badgers

    And the scores on the doors are?

    Anthea?

    Inquisitive minds need to know...

    Was that a bump in the road? Nah, just another badger...

  11. Neo2010
    Linux

    Ubuntu support

    Neither "apt-get install ie9" or "apt-get install internet-exploder-9" seem to work.

    1. Old Marcus
      Troll

      Here we go again...

      Get off your open source high horse and go snuggle up with Dillo.

      I mean, do you actually want IE9 on Linux?

      Reacting to Linux snobs is my favourite pasttime. Go me.

      1. James Hughes 1

        @Old Marcus

        Do you have a sense of humour? Because I have a feeling this was a tongue in cheek joke type of thing.

        1. Old Marcus

          Yeah, sense of humour is relatively intact...

          I could tell it was a joke, but a very old and tired one. I really need to stop reading the garbage of the fanatics on ubuntuforums, it's making me bitter and vitriolic.

    2. Olafthemighty
      Happy

      @ Neo2010

      "internet-exploder-9" ? That sounds SERIOUSLY cool - where can I get it?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: IE9 windows opened from the taskbar

    " IE9 windows opened from the taskbar still have access to new tabs, whereas in Chrome they are disabled."

    Could you explain what you mean by this?

  13. Criminny Rickets
    Thumb Down

    What research?

    - "Fewer than one third have opened Favourites, fewer than a quarter have pressed the home button," says product manager Ian Moulster. -

    I don't know about Ian Moulster, but those are actually the two things I use most in a browser.

  14. Hans 1
    Coat

    Download Manager?

    Not Windows XP? What about 2000? Just kiddin'

    Who in their right mind uses Vista? Does the "Download manager" still copy files to %temp% before copying them to the desired location? If so, no thanks, think again MickeySoft.

    Have they fixed the download progress indicator or does it still do 15 minutes .... 2 hours ... 3 minutes ... 4 days?

  15. censored
    WTF?

    "Fewer than one third have opened favourites"

    Seriously, how do these people operate?

    My wife has all her bookmarks, from regular to vaguely interesting to must-read-sometime on the Firefox Bookmark's Toolbar. In no particular order and running off into a massive scroll-down list. It drives me insane.

    And no, I don't think she knows they're all accessible through the Awesome Bar.

  16. P. Lee
    Grenade

    All hail the Onebox!

    All your URLs are belong to us!

    You know, just so we can offer search suggestions. Honest!

    I reckon Chrome will be great for apps (roll on NaCl), but for browsing, I think I'll stick to FF with a separate url and search box, noscript and flashblock.

  17. skeptical i
    Coat

    One Box to rule them all?

    Sorry, couldn't resist.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    @Neo

    @captain veg: your lucky day. The original Chrome installer did that. "Installs the Chrome browser shell on the google cloud servers." all you need to run Chrome is a web browser which can do the HTTP and display part of things.

    @Neo2010: Try aptitude.. maybe its sitting in the alternative universe repository.

  19. Mark 65

    Am I missing something?

    "IE9 therefore presents a minimal user interface in the browser chrome, but adds integration with Windows, especially Windows 7"

    Haven't we been down this road before?

  20. Mark Graybill

    Playing to the Pits

    The use patterns of the laziest and most ill informed is going to define the feature set?

    Yeah, that sounds like a strategy. Write the thing for those too stupid to complain. That'll show those power-users!

    Why even include a location/search bar? Just make the thing go straight to Facebook.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But what about teh most important thing?

    Does it support the STANDARDS that every other browser supports yet? Or are web devs going to have to carry on waiting until that fabled "promised support" that IE10 will allegedly bring us? Please, please, please MS - make a standards compliant browser and then we can concentrate the majority of our time on doing our jobs and not on fixing your mess!

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's good, but animated fish don't make a fast browser...

    I wouldn't say that Microsoft are copying anyone really, browser UIs have be going that way since Chrome was originally released. I've never been a fan of the bigger back button.

    The most important thing from where I'm sitting is Trident, which has caught up with current standards. What bothers me is that they are trumpeting themselves as leaders and, as per usual, misleading everyone into thinking hardware accelerated fish makes for a fast overall browsing experience. It's still slower than Chrome when actually come to rendering everyday HTML, CSS and JavaScript and I'd be worried if they couldn't actually get the app to launch faster on their own OS! Still, credit where it's due, it's a big shift in attitude for Microsoft and good work has been done. All this good work is utterly pointless though until the world is rid of IE6; a fantastic browser for it's time, but that time was 10 years ago!

    While I'm at it, why on earth have Microsoft implemented a "tweaked" version of Trident from IE7 in Windows 7 phone? That is monumentally fucking stupid. I'd get the reasoning behind using the current *3 year old* version found in IE8, but the way they have gone is inexcusable. For all the UI shiny that 'softies are espousing, the browsing experience is going to be shit.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Ugh.

    I _hate_ the new UI. Sticking the tabs on the same bar with the address/search bar means that there isn't much room for tabs, unless you like your browser taking up the entire screen. Also, they chopped out a lot of the functionality of the search box when they combined it with the address bar. Now, instead of being able to select from your list of search providers, you can only choose from the first few (however many will fit in the width of the tiny address bar.) The list of search providers has also been changed to a set of icons for the search engines. If a search engine doesn't have an icon, (even Google Images doesn't have an icon) then it gets a generic magnifying glass. The list of crap you get when you type stuff into the address bar is overwhelming as well. It tries to combine your browsing history with your typed address history and some search queries that makes it take up a lot of space that it doesn't need to. I'd bet that people use the proffered selections in the address bar even less than they do favorites.

    You can still turn the command and favorites bars on and off, but there doesn't seem to be any way to fix the tab/address bar layouts. It will let you shuffle the reload/go & stop buttons around to either side of the address bar though. The downloads box sounds like a nice idea, but I couldn't stand that UI long enough to try it out. I won't miss the home button though, the idea of a home page was nice before favorites and search boxes were added, but since then, it's been kinda useless. They did also add quick links to their default new tab page, which is nice for those people who only frequent a dozen or so sites.

    Overall, it's a horrible release. But I won't use Chrome for a lot of the same reasons. I only hope that they get enough hate mail to at least put the IE8 UI as an option hidden in some dark recesses of the browser configuration.

  24. Andy Jones
    WTF?

    BBC article

    I see that the BBC website wrote an advert, sorry, article about IE9. They make out it has been launched until the very last set of paragraphs. It is a total suckfest and is absolutely disgusting that they are persuaded to advertise this POS.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11315819

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      check the 'byline'

      You'll probably find that the original story came from AP. At least the one this morning @ ajc.com had an AP byline.

      I guess they can't get dinged for false advertising if it's a 'news story'

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    god i hate

    Stupid download managers

  26. Ari_M
    Thumb Up

    Nice looking UI...

    Too bad it will be ruined (again) by the ugly anti-virus toolbars that come with the security packages these days.

  27. mhenriday
    Pint

    Thanks, Mozilla, Chrome, and Opera -

    your efforts in the browser field have finally pushed Microsoft to devote the resources necessary to make significant improvements its problem child of a browser ! This would hardly have happened if Microsoft had been able to maintain its quasi-monopoly. Alas, we still have yet to see a similar development in the OS field....

    Henri

  28. JDX Gold badge
    Grenade

    re:Alas, we still have yet to see a similar development in the OS field

    Yeah, Linux and MacOSX still have some catching up to do.

    1. mhenriday
      Thumb Down

      Having used and continuing to use both MS and Linux OS,

      it is not my experience that the latter need to «catch up» to the former. But different strokes for different folks ; I have no problem with JDX preferring and using Windows OS on his or her computers, but I do dislike having to jump through hoops to get a new box without paying the Microsoft tax. I hope that the European Commission will finally acknowledge the importance of this issue, and take a good hard look at the dodgy marketing practices which have allowed Microsoft to gain a quasi-monopoly in the field....

      Henri

  29. JDX Gold badge

    Hi

    Love how an Opera fanboy was presumably waiting to get first comment. It must be terrible for Opera disciples, having had every good feature for decades all the other browsers introduce, and yet nobody uses it. FireFox gains market share, Chrome comes from nowhere and overtakes them.

    Ultimately there has to be a reason Opera doesn't get used. Other open-source browsers have done very well so either Opera people suck at advertising, or Opera just sucks.

    IE9's W7 integration sounds pretty similar to Chrome/ChromeOS. Interesting at the least. They'll be slammed if they play it safe, or if they try to make big changes, anyway.

  30. Brennan Young
    FAIL

    No HTML5 on MSIE on XP - MS hands over even more market share

    Considering

    how long time it takes certain people to upgrade from one MS OS to another,

    and considering that

    IE9 will be for Vista and Windows7 only (not XP)

    and considering that

    IE9 will be the only MS browser which supports HTML5,

    ... it would seem that the mooted 2025 date for HTML5 being fully established is quite accurate.

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