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Internet Explorer 9 build reveals new download manager
An early Internet Explorer 9 build has revealed a new download manager for Microsoft's popular web browser.
Screenshots of the build leaked to Chinese website Cnbeta earlier this week. The screenshots reveal a download manager for pausing and canceling downloads, a new icon for Internet Explorer 9 and what appears to be greater security control of add-ons. The new features are an early look at what features Microsoft is planning for the first beta of Internet Explorer 9. The screenshots do not reveal any UI changes apart from what appears to be a new icon. Neowin has independently verified the screenshots and we can confirm these are genuine and from a build distributed to internal and external partners.
Microsoft originally unveiled Internet Explorer 9 at PDC 2009. IE 9 will take advantage of the power of the GPU for all page rendering and developers can exploit this using CSS, DHTML and javascript. A new JS engine (codenamed Chakra) will also be built into Internet Explorer 9 with greater interoperability and standards support all round. Features such as rounded corner CSS support will be built in. In January, Neowin revealed that Microsoft is planning to enhance tabbed browsing in IE9. According to a software patent, the Quick Tabs feature in Internet Explorer is likely to be enhanced with better functionality and greater tab management options.
Microsoft is also planning broader support for HTML5 in Internet Explorer 9 through its new script engine. Microsoft recently performed W3C Web Standards tests on IE9, including HTML5, SVG 1.1 2nd edition, CSS3 media queries, CSS3 borders & backgrounds, CSS3 selectors, DOM level 3 core, DOM level 3 events and DOM level 2 style. Microsoft, with the help of W3C, performed a total of 192 tests on a variety of browsers. Internet Explorer 9 scored 100% in all eight tests, while every other browser, except Firefox in DOM level 2 style tests, didn't score perfect in any of the test categories.
Microsoft originally began scouting for Internet Explorer 9 beta testers in March. In an email to testers, Justin Saint Clair - Program Manager of Internet Explorer invited testers to join a "select group of IE9 Tech Feedback participants." Neowin understands that Microsoft will introduce a beta of Internet Explorer 9 in early September.
Comments (101)
Julius Caro - 29 July 2010 - 11:04
It only took them 12+ years
Borix - 29 July 2010 - 11:08
lol
hope ms will surprise us this time
ObiWanToby - 29 July 2010 - 15:00
lol
hope ms will surprise us this time
Oh come on, they were the first major player to announce GPU acceleration. They will probably have the best implementation by far.
leesmithg - 29 July 2010 - 15:10
12 years ago I was trying out beta 5 of I.E., least they take their time.
+Northgrove - 29 July 2010 - 15:11
Oh come on, they were the first major player to announce GPU acceleration. They will probably have the best implementation by far.
To be fair, download management is much more important than GPU acceleration though. But it's good to see it finally sunk in.
Meph - 29 July 2010 - 15:21
Oh come on, they were the first major player to announce GPU acceleration. They will probably have the best implementation by far.
Well... Mozilla were investigating GPU rendering even before Microsoft announced it. However, Microsoft were the first to use it (then, about a month afterwards, Mozilla added it to their nightly builds).
Julius Caro - 29 July 2010 - 15:51
I was talking about the download management. The download file dialog has been the same since ... probably IE3, but I wasnt sure so I'm implying IE5.
Panda X - 29 July 2010 - 16:09
They had one in IE 6.5. It was removed by the time it was finished (IE 7)
MorganX - 29 July 2010 - 16:50
To be fair, download management is much more important than GPU acceleration though. But it's good to see it finally sunk in.
Background downloading is more important that a download manager. Start some browser downloads and then close Chrome, Safari, or Firefox? Can't do it. Have to keep a full browser open. IE is still superior when it comes to downloading. This will only make the kiddies who play with mozilla's kludgy downloads more comfortable.
Ci7 - 29 July 2010 - 18:17
Well... Mozilla were investigating GPU rendering even before Microsoft announced it. However, Microsoft were the first to use it (then, about a month afterwards, Mozilla added it to their nightly builds).
except it is turned off by default in Firefox nightly (minefield)
i bet MS will release first
thenonhacker - 29 July 2010 - 18:59
To be fair, download management is much more important than GPU acceleration though. But it's good to see it finally sunk in.
I think it's the other way around.
thenonhacker - 29 July 2010 - 18:59
To be fair, download management is much more important than GPU acceleration though. But it's good to see it finally sunk in.
I think it's the other way around.
nekrosoft13 - 29 July 2010 - 21:12
To be fair, download management is much more important than GPU acceleration though. But it's good to see it finally sunk in.
it was important with dialup, but with high speed broadband not so much.
Leonick - 29 July 2010 - 21:22
Background downloading is more important that a download manager. Start some browser downloads and then close Chrome, Safari, or Firefox? Can't do it. Have to keep a full browser open. IE is still superior when it comes to downloading. This will only make the kiddies who play with mozilla's kludgy downloads more comfortable.
Firefox has it's downloads in a separate windows so you can close the rest, having one window for all downloads rather than one for each as current IE must be better don't you think?
Borix - 29 July 2010 - 22:02
Oh come on, they were the first major player to announce GPU acceleration. They will probably have the best implementation by far.
Big deal. Without GPU acc. they (again) be the turtle of the pack
thenetavenger - 29 July 2010 - 22:22
Well... Mozilla were investigating GPU rendering even before Microsoft announced it. However, Microsoft were the first to use it (then, about a month afterwards, Mozilla added it to their nightly builds).
Really? Mozilla was investigating GPU rendering using Microsoft technology before Microsoft? How do you figure this is possible?
Mozilla's Direct2D is an upper layer rendering acceleration in contrast to the IE9 browser being designed around GPU acceleration at several levels, with Direct2D also doing the final layer rendering - handed off to the WDDM.
Direct2D is a Microsoft technology that gives applications a lightweight entry to GPU acceleration without having to resort to OpenGL or full DirectX, which would abandon any OS layer drawing/control libraries.
thenetavenger - 29 July 2010 - 22:57
For a download manager?
Microsoft's concept with IE in the past, is that it should work with the OS instead of replicating things that the OS's UI can handle.
When you think about it, if you have five downloads, you have five dialog boxes accessible from the OS UI easily, and not something you need a specific download manager for. So in this way, Windows is already providing a somewhat less elegant, but functional download manager from the Explorer UI.
This is just like Tabs, everyone wanted Tabs, Tabs, Tabs... However, the way IE was designed and the way Windows works, IE has 'technically' had Tabs since 1996. Again IE used the OS UI, and the 'Tabs' were 'Buttons' on the taskbar, which is essentially and OS level 'tab' manager. Giving IE7/IE8 tabs didn't add functionality at all, it just pulled the 'tabs' from the Taskbar so that also now show inside IE.
(*I care less either way about tabs, but from an OS standpoint, they create additional problems with things like the Vista/Win7 thumbnails that have to talk to IE to get the 'tabs' to show them on the 'taskbar' with preview properly.)
The Win95/NT4 OS UI was designed to give all applications/pages their own 'button/tab', having an additional row of 'tabs/buttons' inside the browser is redundant on Windows, even today.
(*I do think a download manager is a good idea, because things like resume downloads will be far easier for basic users; however if poorly designed it could take over too much of what the users should be using Windows Explorer for instead.)
+TCLN Ryster - 29 July 2010 - 11:06
Haven't we seen these already this week? I'm sure I saw them somewhere earlier in the week from Softpedia.
thealexweb - 29 July 2010 - 11:07
Haven't these already been declared fake?
Also those HTML5 tests that were performed were rubbished, Microsoft compared their latest Alpha against the competitors stables, yeh that sounds fair.
Xeon - 29 July 2010 - 11:09
Pretty sure the screenshots were declared fake. Either way, not a fan of download managers. I like the old school download windows.