IE9 download available!

By Ambroos
in Back Page News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

I really love this. I would like to see a lot more consistency in the design though. As I've said elsewhere, the new information bar is brilliant, but as that is used for just about everything it makes sense to use it for, it should also be used in place of that dialog that appears when closing the browser window (the one which asks if you'd like to close the current tab or all tabs). Another legacy UI element which really needs an overhaul is the 'Internet options'. I really hope this does become redesigned before Microsoft release this as the final version. Aside from that, the overall design could benefit from some obvious tweaking; one thing which sticks out to me is the border of the 'back' and 'forward' buttons - it does not appear to be very smooth and neither do some other UI elements. I've always disliked the coloured tabs, so I wish they would provide us an option to disable them, but at least they've made the shades a bit nicer in this version. Finally, some elements no longer fit in well with IE - the 'find' bar and 'favourites' drop-down look out of place; hopefully Microsoft will change the designs of these (and similar elements, like the 'Favourites' tool bar) to allow them to fit in more with the new IE 9 design.

One feature Internet Explorer could benefit from is being more customisable. If 'quick tabs' was still available (like I believe it should be), I wouldn't need the tab bar showing and would benefit from removing it, especially because when using apps, not that many tabs are open in a window. Another feature I would love to see is a spell checker. Aside from that, I can't think of any other features I'd like, other than an address bar drop-down more like Firefox's (displaying favicons) and a 'find' function more like Safari's, but I know both of those will not be implemented.

The biggest annoyance I have experienced is in regard to 'apps'. When using an 'app' which has been pinned to the taskbar, it is very easy to accidently use that 'app' for another website or link. For example, I'm now typing this post from a Facebook 'app'; I don't know how I ended up on Neowin through this 'app', but it would be nice if Microsoft only allowed pages from an 'app' to be used within that 'app' window and any other links clicked on could open in generic Internet Explorer windows; this would allow for a cleaner experience and no confusion in regard to where my open tabs are. Likewise, when links are clicked from an external application or another website, it would be nice if they opened in their respective 'app's window (for example, when I click on a link to a Neowin thread from within Windows Live Mail, the link is not opened in my Neowin 'app').

Hopefully some of my suggestions and ideas for improvement will make it into the final version. As of now, I believe I could end up using this as my main browser; I will continue to do so for the foreseeable future and decide in due course which browser I prefer.

Grand Master

spenser.d

Posted
Posted

I really like the UI and the new features, however at the moment, its kind of sluggish (using at least 3x the memory IE8 did) but I can live with that.

/edit - I take that back, after realizing by default it pins the 32 bit IE to the taskbar I loaded up the 64 bit version and it runs quick as hell. Unfortunately any sites pinned to the taskbar load in a 32 bit window.

Grand Master

ViperAFK

Posted
Posted

I really love this. I would like to see a lot more consistency in the design though. As I've said elsewhere, the new information bar is brilliant, but as that is used for just about everything it makes sense to use it for, it should also be used in place of that dialog that appears when closing the browser window (the one which asks if you'd like to close the current tab or all tabs). Another legacy UI element which really needs an overhaul is the 'Internet options'. I really hope this does become redesigned before Microsoft release this as the final version. Aside from that, the overall design could benefit from some obvious tweaking; one thing which sticks out to me is the border of the 'back' and 'forward' buttons - it does not appear to be very smooth and neither do some other UI elements. I've always disliked the coloured tabs, so I wish they would provide us an option to disable them, but at least they've made the shades a bit nicer in this version. Finally, some elements no longer fit in well with IE - the 'find' bar and 'favourites' drop-down look out of place; hopefully Microsoft will change the designs of these (and similar elements, like the 'Favourites' tool bar) to allow them to fit in more with the new IE 9 design.

One feature Internet Explorer could benefit from is being more customisable. If 'quick tabs' was still available (like I believe it should be), I wouldn't need the tab bar showing and would benefit from removing it, especially because when using apps, not that many tabs are open in a window. Another feature I would love to see is a spell checker. Aside from that, I can't think of any other features I'd like, other than an address bar drop-down more like Firefox's (displaying favicons) and a 'find' function more like Safari's, but I know both of those will not be implemented.

The biggest annoyance I have experienced is in regard to 'apps'. When using an 'app' which has been pinned to the taskbar, it is very easy to accidently use that 'app' for another website or link. For example, I'm now typing this post from a Facebook 'app'; I don't know how I ended up on Neowin through this 'app', but it would be nice if Microsoft only allowed pages from an 'app' to be used within that 'app' window and any other links clicked on could open in generic Internet Explorer windows; this would allow for a cleaner experience and no confusion in regard to where my open tabs are. Likewise, when links are clicked from an external application or another website, it would be nice if they opened in their respective 'app's window (for example, when I click on a link to a Neowin thread from within Windows Live Mail, the link is not opened in my Neowin 'app').

Hopefully some of my suggestions and ideas for improvement will make it into the final version. As of now, I believe I could end up using this as my main browser; I will continue to do so for the foreseeable future and decide in due course which browser I prefer.

There is an option to disable colored tabs. In tab options uncheck 'group tabs'

Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

There is an option to disable colored tabs. In tab options uncheck 'group tabs'

Ah, excellent. Thank you for letting me know :) I didn't realise the 'Tab Groups' feature related to the coloured tabs, I just thought that meant tabs from the same website; I can't believe this didn't occur to me :D I'm very happy, now I can disable them.

Veteran

TDT

Posted
Posted

Well...for me it's a - . I'll stick with Chrome for the time being. I hate the font rendering and there's no ****ing adblock. At least I didn't find one. Also, when you have folders on the bookmarks bar, they don't open when you hover your mouse on them, you have to click them. That sucks. Oh well... :(

Grand Master

ObiWanToby

Posted
Posted

Wow I love the font rendering. It's kind of like in between OS X and Cleartype.

Yeah, this is amazing. Word, and well everything else needs a good update. Seems very sensitive to your color settings and type of monitor though. I think many will probably just hate it :(

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

Installed the IE9 Beta and notice that the fonts don't look quite right. They don't look bad, just... off. Hard to explain, but if you compare IE8 to IE9 you'll see what I'm talking about. Is this some kind of beta glitch, or is just how DirectDraw renders fonts now?

Guest xiphi

Posted
Posted

Installed the IE9 Beta and notice that the fonts don't look quite right. They don't look bad, just... off. Hard to explain, but if you compare IE8 to IE9 you'll see what I'm talking about. Is this some kind of beta glitch, or is just how DirectDraw renders fonts now?

DirectWrite*

No idea how people get the two confused since DirectDraw has been depracated since DirectX 7.

As for the fonts, that's a how they'll continue to look with DirectWrite. Steam, Paint.Net, IE9, and Firefox 4 are the only applications I'm aware of that support it.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

Yes. IE 9b1 replaces IE 8. The only way to get IE 8 back is to uninstall IE 9.

Okay, good to know. Was going to install this on the family PC but I will wait until it's final, because I wanted to make sure they could always have IE8 as a fallback.

Grand Master

Ayepecks

Posted
Posted

But I have finally managed to install it. Reboot your computer and then try to install again. It worked for me.

I'm still trying it on my main computer to give this damn thing another shot, but it is consistently stuck at "Downloading required updates..." (right under the "q" of "required"). I've tried taking my computer offline to install it, rebooting, shutting down all non-vital processes... nothing works. This isn't an uncommon error from what I've been reading, too.

Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Bleh, compatibility view is still around...

You don't have to use it and in the final version, you should be able to remove that command button.

It's there because it's useful to many, especially companies who developed apps specifically targetted towards IE 6.

Veteran

~Johnny

Posted
Posted

I'd actually use this browser quite a lot, IF it had mouse gestures. I just find browsing without them so antiquated now >__< Haven't really found a good add-on for them either. Still is nice work, can't help thinking it's certainly not teh best UI they could have come up with though. Why not chuck the address bar up where the title bar is or something? It's very questionable design at the moment.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.