Internet Explorer 9 Review

Tried it and pretty soon tired of it. Some web pages excruciatingly slow to load, requiring compatibility view to to fix the problem - sometimes way too often. Google Chrome and Firefox much more preferable for my browsing needs. Can't wait for the new Firefox!

I agree, Tigerdirect.com for example takes 20-25 seconds to load up versus 2-3 seconds on Opera and Goole Chrome. Sorry, IE9 i cannot give you 5 stars, you are not quiet there yet...

look at the title
'Interent Explorer 9 Review'

should be
'I-n-t-e-r-n-e-t'

slip of the finger; all fixed now, thanks.

The review is almost not touching one of the biggest advantages of IE9 over its competitors, that is hardware acceleration. It would have been nice to compare that to Chrome

Publishing hardware acceleration results for IE9 out of the context of a full test would not be too relevant. We did the JavaScript test to see how the new IE ranks against what is considered to be the fastest browser today, Chrome, which has undergone some serious modifications with the introduction of Crankshaft.

We'll publish a comparative report for a wider browser context and it will includes hardware acceleration as well as other tests. We have some preliminary results from when IE9 and Firefox were in beta: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Browsers-from-Zero-to-Double-Rainbow-Hardware-Acceleration-156926.shtml

Only two browsers can save any web page into one compressed MHT file. IE 9 saves it twice as fast as IE8.

Seems that most Internet users do not save their views on the screen. If they did, they would pick "freeware" Opera browser, which saves MHT files - instantly.

Seems most Internet users do not care about compliance to international web browser standards. IE has nearly always been the worst in compliance, deliberately sabotaging the whole Internet.

Perhaps we can get the ISO or the United Nations to give another multi-million dollar fine to Microsoft, for deliberately trying to destroy the Internet.

nice review!

If u tag show tabs in a seperate row,and u have bookmark bar,it's awful...the bookmark bar should be above....it wouldn;t be that confusing.

Why oh why has there NOT been more adverse comment on the fact that peevishness at Microsoft has meant that those of use still WELL content with XP are precluded from using this. I would have THOUGHT that there would have been UPROAR!!!
Surely this is just pushing punters at Chrome or Firefox?

don't have money to get win7?

Thank you! I just switched and did not realize what was happening. I do still have XP, it is not my computer, but the school's. Talk to them about buying new widows and WHY would they make such a major change and not warn us with the blurb to update!!!! FIREFOX here I come.

The 32bit version I'm using seems to be just as fast as Chrome. Lack of any customization is a pity.

"Lack of customization..." Yep, another reason to turf IE 9 for Firefox...

It's nice and all. I just hate the fact that they moved the favorites. I use them constantly and it's going to take some getting used to.

Is it not free if you have a MS? So should the "price/value" be a "5/5"? It would make since if you are giving Firefox and and Chrome that score and they are free. IE9 is an awesome web browser, it has at least caught up to the others.

The key word for this rating category is "value", which cannot be awarded 5 stars at the moment.

interface is copied from Google Chrome. And it failed to work in some of AjaxToolkit features.

Just about every other browser more successfully renders CSS3 and HTML5. Microsoft needs to get out of the business of making browsers if they can't make theirs code compliant.

I wonder when will IE support mouse middle button clicks on favorite bookmark?

IE9...what a complete load of rubbish ... after installing it i couldn't get anything to work on my laptop,browser pages wouldn't open,kept losing internet connection. Decided to un-install IE9 and reinstall IE8.... ahhhhh safe,reliable,dependable peace again..

I totally agree I hate it with a passion, it's slow loading, crashes all the time, I lose internet connection as well, and of course it always tells you something on the web caused it but didn't have these problems with my other IE version. Constantly wants to remove my add ons I use and can get nothing done on sites because of crashing. I feel like this version tries to decide what I should use and not use.

Oh and now I'm having the kernel problem which I never had at all until I upgraded. Ugh, and double ugh hate...hate...can I say it again HATE IT! And if I can find IE 8 going back to it.

Works well when it works - but lots of little problems make it as frustrating to use as IE 8 like fonts that won't print in pdf's, sites that freeze, etc. MS seems to be more and more lost in the complexity of its software.

Installed 9.0 - noticed cleartype was on - found out you can't turn off cleartype in 9.0 - uninstalled 9.0 - using 8.0 again - unbelievable.

Internet explorer stinks! Why would they combine the URL box and the tabs onto one line?! You can't see the URL and if you have more than 5 tabs open, which I always do, then they start getting too small! Chrome has a bigger browsing window AND has more room for the omnibox and tabs.

I really don't get it. To many bad comments about IE9. I tried it myself and I see that it's fast, clean and safety. It's now my default web browser again after a long time Firefox was my default web browser.

If you want to have a good browser for yourself, you need to spend time finding yourself such as how to ads-block, how to change the UI the way you want, how to integrate your favourite services into your browser so you can access them easily.

Personally, I installed Bing Bar, so I can access Microsoft Services easily. I installed Quero Toolbar, so I can change the UI the way I want, I can configure the IE to search very efficiently. I installed Fanboy Adblock Tracking Protection List to block ads. I learned many shortcuts and then I can manipulate very fast.

Try it and spend time playing with it, hope you enjoy.

its slow and it sucks i like I.E. 8 better

This is the worst browser I have ever used..it is very slow to load pages, or won't load pages completly. The different reminders and pop ups are very annoying. I can't find a single thing about this version that I like. I have used Microsoft for a very long time..maybe it's time to try something else!

Thanks for all the info. I am not real computer savy and I did not want to install IE9 until I read some reviews on it. A reminder pops up from time to time suggesting I download it to my computer. I have been happy with IE8 and after reading the reviews, I think I will stick with it. Thanks

I switched back to IE8. IE9 was not faster, didn't load pages faster, experienced many freeze-ups, and online games severely lagged or froze up. I never had that problem with IE8. After I switched back to IE8, everything ran smoothly, quickly, never froze, and all online games played perfectly. What exactly were they testing for 2 years at Microsoft when they were developing IE9? Apparently it wasn't streaming video, loading pictures, or playing games. And, apparently, I am not the only who noticed this or experienced these problems. My computers, laptop and desktop, are MORE than equipped to handle any task....so all blame to IE9 problems with videos, pictures, and games goes to the developers at Microsoft. I would not recommend IE9 to anyone until they work out all the kinks....and there are many.

When I tried IE9, the first and biggest problem I found was that when you type search text into the new multi-function add/search box, and you don't like the results, you must re-enter all search text (super annoying). With the separate search box in IE8, you could tweak what you entered and search again. This was really such a negative feature that I uninstalled IE9 and went back to IE9.

All results are displayed in the search engine of your choice, which has a search field itself; how annoying can it be to tweak your query in the text field of the search engine?

That would all be great if the thing actually started even half the time when I open it. Mostly it just locks up immediately and I have to kill about 3 or 4 IE processes before trying to open it again. After about 4 go arounds on that, it starts and works.

I started this with a whole essay about how IE9 doesn't work - but why waste words and energy. It sucks. Every single person on its design team should be sacked. I have gone back to IE8 which is marginally better.

The combination of Google's "instant" and IE 9 is a recipe for suicide.

Only one word: great. Hope that IE10 will keep it up.

IE 9 sucks. Its slow, clunky and does not always load pages. The pop-up and save file options interfere and are constant. I have to load pages 2 or 3 times. It has hurt my productivity. I have used IE browsers for a long time. I am thinking of going back to Firefox which I am not a fan off.
Like IE 8, it is integrated into Windows - you can't uninstall it very easy which has caused my problems with IE 8 and now with IE 9.
Microsoft is a company without any vision or quality control. Avoid!

The best browser for me, I recommend it for my friends.

Recommending IE9 is a sure way to end a friendship.

My story is that IE9 bogs down and I have to wait while it informs me "Internet Explorer has stopped working .... a problem with the Web page cause IE to close and reopen the tab..."etc
I have no idea what to do about this

With Pinned sites, the websites I love is just one-click away. I also can protect my privacy with Tracking Protect List. Thank you Microsoft, great job.

windows keep freezing and need to be recovered. nothing is handy at all...

For me, IE9 is the only browser that works well with Windows 7.

No spyware like Google Chrome, No memory eating like Firefox.

Nice review, IE9 deserves Excellent - 5 stars rating like this. Thank you, Softpedia.

Maybe you don't know:
To block ads in IE9: just go to http://fanboy.co.nz/adblock/ie.html. Click "Fanboy Adblock List for Internet Explorer 9" Add TPL (Tracking Protection List).

P/S: Fanboy Adblock List is also famous in Firefox world.

i dont understand all the techno-speak on this subject. but for all us computer dummies, ie9 is a mess. too many steps to do what used to be easy,pop-ups at the bottom of the page that mean absolutly nothing to me. my favorite bar has dissappeared, a new popped up, and i CANT figure out how to organize it. everytime something is new and improved, it becomes a nightmare. thanks ms.

IE9 is slick and speedy, has better security against malware, is HTML5-friendly, and offers GPU-enhanced graphics performance. Well-done, MS.

Sorry to say, but you are way off in your review. Technically speaking, many of your assertions are accurate; however, end-user speaking they are not spot-on. Thus, and from a long-term Microsoft IE user, as well as using other browsers, IE9 is cumbersome and not nearly customizable enough. Depending on your OS and if you have a 64-bit system, especially if you are unfortunate enough to be stuck with an older OS, even Vista, IE9 is a disaster and not compatibile with any of those systems. The features of IE8 are lost and migration of settings is a nightmare. Only if you are willing to invest a small fortune of time and expense is IE9 going to cut the mustard. Unless you are upgrading to Windows 7, I cannot recommend in all good conscience that anyone update from IE8, or earlier IE, to IE9. IE8 is a well-rounded product, albeit with some very minor drawbacks. Security in IE8 is not an issue when keeping current with patches along with a sound, robust internet security and antivirus program. Hence again, stick with IE8 until MS makes the improvements necessary to make IE9 import all the features of IE8 in a similar format, as well as the advancements offered in IE9, which will allow for a much more refined user-friendly product.

windows 9.0 sucks - there is wasted windows space at the top of the page and there seems to be no way adjusting it to utilize this space - what design person thought of this??! Also, why take away the FILE/EDIT/VIEW menu's at the top - and create stupid little icons that are easiliy lost on the right?? (you can re-add the menus but once again... why mess with something that works!!??).

i did not like IE 9. I missed my favorites bar and could not figure out how to make the favorites bar visible at all times. Every time i clicked on a like in a search engine, it took me to another search engine. I don't feel this is as user friendly as IE 8. I uninstalled 9 and will keep 8 until something more user friendly comes out.

This article provided me with the nuts and bolts regarding IE9. Thanks much.

So, uhm do you think this tops google chrome? or nawwww jus stick to chrome?

If it is great then suggest as to why it won't open a selected website from the one I am on??? I give up on trying to solve the entropy of progress.

I'm running XP on my older desktop, and Win 7 on my newer laptop. I actually would have prefered to run XP on both.
Now I am getting a message from my gmail accounts that my IE8 is incompatable with some pages on my gmail,...and they keep inviting me to switch browsers. BUT I'm most confortable with my IE8, and particularly the 'favorites' layout that I use all of the time.

After reading thru these postings, I certainly do NOT want to upgrade to IE9, and besides it appears as though it would not be compatable with my XP machine. So what is my best option?? (I'm an older guy who spends a lot of time on boat forums, and is not comfortable making changes to my computer interface every several years at the whim of some youg hotshot software guy)