Today, as part of MIX 2010, some exciting updates were released on the progress of Internet Explorer 9. The IE team is implementing some incredible features, such as HTML5, CSS3, SVG support, and a new lightning fast JavaScript engine, Chakra! Further, they’re currently scoring a 55 on the Acid3 test – a figure that’s surely to increase substantially before the official release. What about the idea of Microsoft contributing to an open source project, jQuery, with their proposed templating engine? Within moments of these announcements, the Twitter-verse spilled “tears of joy.”
Want to dive in and check out the developer preview? That’s available too, starting today!
Take IE9 for a Test Drive.
Finally, we announced the availability of the first IE Platform Preview for developers, and our commitment to update it approximately every eight weeks. We want the developer community to have an earlier hands-on experience with the progress we’re making on the IE platform. The Platform Preview, and the feedback loop it is part of, marks a major change from previous IE releases.
IE Blog
Demos
Check out some of the demos below in each browser to learn the unique code required for each.
New JavaScript Engine: Chakra
“You’ll notice that IE9 is faster at this benchmark than IE8 and several other browsers. It’s interesting to note that the difference between today’s IE9 preview and the browsers to its right in this graph. It takes about 70 seconds to identify a 300ms difference between browsers.”
IE Blog
Miscellaneous Tweets about IE9 from MIX 2010
“Video tag and SVG support in IE 9 as well – and it’s crazy fast. Very impressed.”
John Resig
“Microsoft to Expand its Collaboration with the jQuery Community”: http://bit.ly/cxybri
@jQuery
“Today makes me very happy to have come to work at Microsoft. Very excited right now to see the reactions of the community.”
Rey Bango
“They’re asking for help in getting ppl to move IE6 to IE8. They want users on modern browsers.”
Rey Bango
“Open source, open standards, open Microsoft. Today I woke up to a different world than I thought I was living in.”
Molly E. Holzschlag
“So what we have here is HTML5, CSS3, SVG 1.1 in IE9. If I weren’t seeing it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t freakin’ believe it.”
Molly E. Holzschlag
Check back for more details as they become available!
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A fantastic step in the right direction. The obvious “but it wont be standard for 10 years” arguments all apply still, but its a huge progression. I’m impressed with IE – never thought id be saying that!
David his an excellent point, this is a well and good by if people do not update, then we are still in IE6 land. However, glad to hear the MS is moving forward!
I think you have you dates wrong, its March 17th, April Fool’s day is a couple of weeks away.
I doesn’t matter if IE9 beats all the browsers in every single aspect, if they don’t force users to upgrade that browser will be a waste of time, not everyone is a developer and not everyone cares to visit microsoft webpage to check if they already upgraded their browser.
agree…
Don’t be fooled by the hype. “Support” does not mean full or complete support. For example, SVG support in IE9 is only about 1/4 of what other browsers support today. While Microsoft is bragging about new features in IE9, there is little there that’s not been around in other non-IE browsers for several years. Plus, Microsoft is comparing IE9 with current browsers but IE9 won’t be out till some time next year at the earliest.
iow, if you want all the features of IE9 and more, start using Firefox, Opera, Chrome or Safari and get them right now.
Nice bunch of features and updates. I think it’s worth at least testing it.
Fair enough IE9 “may” be the muts nuts, but MS really need to push ideas forward to get people to upgrade from IE6.
Every time a new IE is released the percentage if IE6 users barley decreases.
This should be a main priority for MS, so they’re really proud of their new release, why not show it off even more by getting the market share stats up there too!
@JohnONolan “What’s up with the negativity in the comments? You all bitch and moan about IE constantly, and then when they finally make a MASSIVE step in the right direction – you’re saying “it’s nothing to get excited about” ??”
Give them some credit for once.
Brilliant. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
@everyonedowngradingie – of course none of us use IE. We’re all designers and developers. Your personal preference doesn’t matter if it gives your users the shaft.
If you’re going to use browser market share in your comment – let’s see your usage statistics. I know on the sites I’m a part of IE6 is less than 4% of the users (whom probably only suffer through IE6 at work and have upgraded browsers at home).
I have communicated directly with these users and have had tremendous success in getting them to update.
Also, as part of the web dev community it’s our job to help push these things forward. Even facebook gives IE7 users a message to update their browsers. If the largest sites on the internet (by traffic) are telling users to upgrade don’t you think it’s time we all do our part as well?
“They’re asking for help in getting ppl to move IE6 to IE8 [insert Chrome, Firefox, etc here]. They want users on modern browsers.”
Rey Bango
el yay! now to get everyone one off of ie6, ie7, and ie8 and we will be set!
If you’re still using IE 6 (or, worse yet, IE 5), then you should be shot.
I’m not holding my breathe, but I really hope IE9 finally uses modern standards and supports everything every other browser can and does…it’s getting ridiculous that a browser than just came out (IE8) can’t even use modern selectors.
Epic fail that the preview doesnt support any OS’ earlier than Vista SP2
Not at all.
Windows XP is 10 years old and can’t use IE9 technology.
Time to switch…
euhm sorry but what about netbooks? all netbooks run windows XP and they are made for the internet? ( well maybe not all but a lot do)
How’s that? Windows XP supports the Webkit and Gecko engines so why not a new spawn of Satanic Browserness? It doesn’t matter about not being able to use it; if this was the case then Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc. Wouldn’t work at all on XP which they blatantly do.
Only thing that would make IE9 not work under XP would be not having the extra bloat (all the DLL functions etc) which would be installed by the browser. The preview doesn’t suport any OS’ earlier than Vista SP2 because XP will shortly be classed as Obsolete, and hopefully so will Vista (Yes I am an Avid fan of Windows 7 but not limited to just Windows 7. before a OS War starts here.)
So therefore your statement just there is classed as null and void. Anything like that will work on XP as long as the libraries and everything else is installed with it (For example a new breed of .NET Framework)
There’s my 2 cents.
The elephant in the room is, of course, IE6 and the fact that it remains embedded in the corporate world to such an extent. Weeding it out is going to take a long long time. Organisations like corporations and (especially) governmental bodies do not upgrade their operating systems at the drop of a hat, especially when they have all sorts of proprietary scripts and software that rely on that old OS. And if IE6 is tied to that operating system then it’s not going anywhere for a while yet — especially if that browser, itself, is required to properly access all that legacy custom software.
If this seems unlikely, then bear in mind that a couple of months ago a large corporate client of mine told me proudly that they were just about to upgrade to Windows XP.
IE9 sounds good at first blush, but until IE6 really is a trace memory then the practical value of all that good work is reduced.
Just saw this post after I posted mine. I concur.
Large Corporation Intranets applications are built to be compatible for IE6. So we won’t be seeing users update for a while.
A lot of Government branches use systems built for IE6… To be proactive for a more secure world, they should take the lead for all large Corps. and get their systems updated. Unfortunately it will cost a mass amount of cash… But it’s for the greater good!
Cakra Engine? The name very Indonesian ;)
Hmm.. IE9 is a step in the right direction, but Firefox and Chrome have had all these features long before MS.
haha Microsoft got it after 10years! nice very nice. NOT
get Safari/Chrome/Firefox.
Anyone else find it nice to see IE6 excluded from the document modes, but disturbing to see IE5 as an option? What’s that all about?
“Document modes
You can force the Platform Preview into different document modes. To do this, click the Debug menu and select one of the Document Modes. You can also press Alt plus the numbers 5, 7, 8, or 9 to select IE5, IE7, IE8, and IE9 document modes respectively (for example, Alt + 7 for IE7). You can press Alt + 0 at any time to reset the document mode to the page default.”
Thanks for sharing these deoms.
It’s good news, however, it may take up to 2 years until the traces of old browsers like IE7 fade away completely and the majority of users will be using full CSS3/HTML5 compliant smart browsers.
I’d like to comment some of @rem (twitter.com/rem) tweets.
ie9 test correction #3 & #4: IE8 also has online events firing and navigator.onLine, this doesn’t appear to be new to IE9.
So far IE9 testing seems very limited. Wish I had some SVG demos, I’m sure it would shine at those at least.
ie9 test #4: online event only fires on body.onOnline, but doesn’t fire on window.onOnline or window.addEventListener
ie9 test #3: appears to have support for navigator.onLine, but can’t work out a way to trip it in to offline…
ie9 test #2: drag and drop doesn’t seem to work either. Claims not to support start, over, enter, drop, leave events.
ie9 test #1: video fails both src and source test. Also tried document.createElement(‘video’) to inspect. Preview platform doesn’t have it.
ugh.. Every IE version sucks, none of the IE Devs has any creativity or selfengagement.. totally ripped of copied software and parts from the beginning, or the technology got owned from buying other companies..
Buy Technology, Manpower, Ideas brand them with Microsoft make the interface dumbproof, remove features, put some homedialing and NSA backdoors in and voilá you’ve got a brand new Microsoft Product you have to be happy with, there is no choice to go around it. Your boss if not his Boss will be dumb enough to buy that..
When will you Microsoft fans understand that they make money to make more money without caring any shit about you and your wishes. Those User Experience reports are just and example. They try to make you feel that their software is more Personal and fitting to your style. NO, that’s all lies. Marketing strategies!
They even have a charity organization called “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation” (really creative, no?) to was their billions..totally true that they really do a good job helping the world but for which price? ask yourself.
ugh.. Every IE version sucks, none of the IE Devs has any creativity or selfengagement.. totally ripped of copied software and parts from the beginning, or the technology got owned from buying other companies..
Buy Technology, Manpower, Ideas brand them with Microsoft make the interface dumbproof, remove features, put some homedialing and NSA backdoors in and voilá you’ve got a brand new Microsoft Product you have to be happy with, there is no choice to go around it. Your boss if not his Boss will be dumb enough to buy that..
When will you Microsoft fans understand that they make money to make more money without caring any shit about you and your wishes. Those User Experience reports are just and example. They try to make you feel that their software is more Personal and fitting to your style. NO, that’s all lies. Marketing strategies!
They even have a charity organization called “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation” (really creative, no?) to was their billions..totally true that they really do a good job helping the world but for which price? ask yourself.
I disagree. Microsoft® is doing it’s very best to provide state-of-the-art technology to it’s customers. Look at what Microsoft® have done in the years and how it’s affected the world; things like the .Net framework™, Windows® operating system, and Surface™. They are amazing things which Microsoft® have created that have changed the world.
Would you want the British National Health Service or the U.S Government to use Macs or Linux computers?
I wouldn’t.
Go play on your Mac little boy, let the grown-ups do business.
I am 99% sure that by the end somehow IE9 will drop even border-radius.
What i am 100% sure is: there will be 100′s of new bugs (as the tradition @Microsoft)
When a div will float right (for some reason there will only be radius on the bottom-left)
They are known to botch up every good thing..
@IE, We dot need your favors. you are dragging down every good thing on the web…. Making 1000′s of web developers lives miserable.
There’s no excuse for governments and corporations to still be using IE6. They need to update infrastructure some time and I’m personally not waiting several more years for it to happen. That’s disgusting industry practice and I think far less developers should be supporting it than what we see now.
IE6 dropped below 10% last month and I expect it to be below 9% this month. Also, if you’re using XP still…you know what? Never mind. Upon release of IE9, I will join the many that no longer support IE6.
I for one didn’t hate Internet Explorer 8 unlike previous versions. It just wasn’t my preferred browser even before CSS3. I happy to see Internet Explorer 9 to join the field of play. It is the right step for Microsoft and if they live up to their promises I’m sure people will stop discouraging users from using it.
Great, now the only problem will be getting everyone to change. I still have clients with visitors coming to sites using IE5
5!!!
Great to see Microsoft is making big plans for IE9. I think they’ve been a bit too easy in the past because they knew they had the market share anyway. Now the other browsers like Firefox and Opera are gaining market share they’re realizing they need to do something. Great!
That’s what they said about IE 8 and it still fails at everything. IE will never be valid in my eyes. I will never use it.
This is excellent! Microsoft have finally started listening to it’s customers and is providing better support for XHTML, HTML5, CSS, and Javascript through it’s web-rendering engine: trident. I can’t wait until Microsoft release Internet Explorer 9, it will make the competition between the three main rendering-engines (Webkit, Mozilla, Trident) tighter!
While Microsoft do not have the power to force their users to upgrade their browsers (i.e. corporations using legacy systems) they should urge them to upgrade.
It’s a dream coming true for me!
Firefox and Chrome have had all these features long before MS. But thans for the info anways!
Have you guys even bothered to check the preview? MS is making a progress and its towards what we all wanted, what’s up with the hating? don’t you want them to finally be in harmony with designers? I can understand the pain but I know that as a designer, I will be needing to keep up with this. Besides I find it a lot easier to just convince clients to upgrade than to find hacks trying to fix the unbroken.
Cool stuff, thanks for the insight
I can’t wait until Microsoft release Internet Explorer 9
the beta is relased now but i feel it is the same like 8 its jsut some changes in the style ?? right ??
I don’t think IE can ever compete with Firefox. For me at least, I use so many add-ons, the functionality of Firefox can’t be beat. It does lock up too much tho probably due to me numerous add-ons – even tho I have a pretty powerful PC.
History shows that Microsoft is “too” good to follow open standards…they always make their own stuff and break the compatibility. >_>
I’m happy about IE 9, but I won’t be jumping on a bandwaggon. I’m sick of IE, constantly frustrating me. lol
Really its the great one.
ie will be the same as google chrome.
the good news is that its gonna be much faster.
the bad news that a lot of websites will have to change their code to w3c.
I downloaded IE9 today. Opened up nettuts and seemed to open pretty fast. Being a web developer, I opened up the Developer tool. That looks the same old thing that was in IE8. Anyway, I tried to see from there if border-radius works, and as expected – It Did Not! So…. going back to Chrome and Firefox
IE 9 is really promising when we consider that firefox and google chrome have really good compatibility with HTML 5 and CSS3. I’m hopeful IE 9 would keep it’s share of maximum internet users browser. Good Luck to IE 9 against their competition with Chrome and firefox.!