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Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 - More Details

17 March 2010

Microsoft have finally released more details of IE9 - their latest version of Internet Explorer.  We have summarised some of the standards included in the new release.

HTML 5

There has been a lot of talk about the new version of HTML for quite a while now, some say it will change the way we interact with websites, others don't even know about it.  In terms of IE9, it will support a few key features.  Thanks for Gizmodo for the summary -

h.264 video: When people talk about HTML5 killing Flash, this is what they're talking about. Some video sites, like YouTube and Vimeo, have been experimenting with video playback that doesn't require a plugin to play. h.264 is the format standard the big sites have chosen to go with, and now Internet Explorer will support it.

Embedded Audio: Just as the video tag allows for video to be embedded directly into a page without a plugin, the audio tag allows audio files to be embedded straight into the page. IE9 supports MP3/AAC codecs.

Scalable Vector Graphics: Scalable vector graphics allow for the creation of certain types of graphics that scale perfectly—because they're drawn as vectors, not plain images. It can also allow for rudimentary, Flash-style animations.

CSS3: CSS is essentially what the web is formatted with, and Internet Explorer's various CSS compatibilities have been maddening since, well, forever. IE9 supports more standards-based CSS3—including Selectors, Namespaces, Color, Values, Backgrounds and Borders and fonts—and should support more before launch. They're finally trying, is the point.

Improved Javascript Performance

IE9 will feature a new Javascript engine internally known as "Chakra" which will now compile code in the background using a separate CPU.

Microsoft still need to improve a lot in terms of speed if they want to catch up with something like Google Chrome.

Support for Windows XP

Some are saying that the new IE9 will only work on Windows Vista and later - I'm not sure if this is a smart move by Microsoft but given the better reliability of Windows 7 compared to Vista, more people may move across to Windows 7, so a better uptake in IE9 may be possible.

Want a Test Drive?

You can preview the new IE9 here.  Although its aimed more at developers at the moment than normal users.

 

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