IE9 Preview Delivers New Features and Impressive Performance

Microsoft is progressing to the next phase of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) development today with the launch of Platform Preview 3 (PP3) of the next generation Web browser. Developers can download the latest preview to get a sneak peek at what's in store with IE9 and what new functionality Microsoft is incorporating.

IE8 is the reigning king among Web browsers--it leads in market share and in market share growth rate--but, IE9 is generating considerable interest. The IE9 Test Drive site has had more than 16 million visitors, and Microsoft reports that the IE9 Platform Preview has been downloaded over two million times.

With the latest release of the IE9 preview, the Microsoft developers have added support for HTML5 Canvas, and HTML5 audio and video tags. The new HTML5 functionality enables IE9 to deliver interactive content and online video on compatible browsers--similar to what you might expect from Adobe Flash, but without the need for any third-party application or browser plugins.

I spoke with Rob Mauceri, principal group program manager for Internet Explorer at Microsoft, and he walked me through the improvements and capabilities of IE9. Microsoft also put together a short video you can watch, demonstrating some of the capabilities of the IE9 PP3. The video shows some joint development effort with IMDB, and with Amazon illustrating how seamlessly IE9 can scroll through the available options and play video clips natively within the browser.

Aside from fun bells and whistles, this latest release in the IE9 development process shows off some speed and performance improvements as well. According to the SunSpider benchmark test, IE9 PP3 comes in at 347 milliseconds overall--outperforming both Chrome 4 and Firefox.

IE9 also includes support for CSS3 Font Face and Web Open Font Format (WOFF)--rendering a wider range of fonts with better clarity. The IE9 demo video shows a page in IE9, and a similar page rendered in the Google Chrome Web browser in which the fonts are all jacked and misaligned. The Acid3 score for IE9 has gone from a 68 with PP2 to an 83 with PP3.

IE9 combines the Chakra JavaScript engine, with support for multicore CPUs, dedicated GPUs, and hardware video acceleration to deliver exceptional performance. Microsoft is able to deliver flawlessly smooth animation at very high frame rates with IE9. Throughout the demo video, Microsoft does side by side comparisons demonstrating how IE9 looks and performs compared with competing browsers, and the results appear to be compellingly in Microsoft's favor.

I asked about an ETA for a public beta of IE9. Mauceri was predictably elusive--essentially saying that Microsoft is working as fast as it can, but is also focused on ensuring a quality product and is not prepared to announce availability dates which might force developers to march to the beat of artificial deadlines that could compromise quality or performance.

The IE9 Platform Preview 3 is available for download as of 2pm Pacific time today. Visit the IE9 Test Drive site for more information and to download PP3.

Internet Explorer 8 Gains at Expense of Chrome and Firefox

The results are out from the latest Net Applications survey of Web browser market share, and Google continues to capture market share and headlines with its Chrome Web browser. Drilling down into the stats, though, and looking behind the curtain reveals that real winner in the market share department is Internet Explorer 8.

The main headline coming out of the most recent data is that Chrome captured the largest gain--growing .32 percent to a new market share of 7.05 percent. Chrome's gain is further enhanced by the fact that both Internet Explorer and Firefox declined. 

Fair enough. Those statistics are true, and there is no denying that Chrome is a solid Web browser that is enjoying relative success at the expense of competing browsers. However, if you look at the stats through some other lenses, Internet Explorer 8--and the upcoming Internet Explorer 9--are both gaining momentum as well.

While Internet Explorer did decline in overall global market share yet again, it is worth noting that it was the smallest decline Internet Explorer has experienced in the past year. What is more impressive is the fact that, breaking out Internet Explorer 8 separate from the rest of the Internet Explorer versions, IE8 actually had the biggest gain--growing 2.5 times faster than Google Chrome.

Even in Europe, where the browser ballot presents users with a randomized list of available browsers in order to level the playing field and ensure some degree of fairness, IE8 was up .48 percent to 29.69 percent for May. Narrowing the field to just the Windows operating system--since that is the only OS that Internet Explorer is available for--IE8 has over 31 percent of the market.

In the United States, Internet Explorer as a whole is up .76 percent to 63.27 percent of the market. Coincidentally, Chrome fell .45 percent, and Firefox fell .24 percent--a combined total of .69 percent. Apparently, Internet Explorer ate up the losses of Chrome and Firefox put together...and then some.

The early success of Internet Explorer 9 is also promising for Microsoft. The Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview build--which is not even a functional beta version yet--has already surpassed a million downloads.

At just under 60 percent market share overall, Internet Explorer still has an overwhelming advantage over competing browsers. The second place browser--Firefox--has less than 25 percent market share, and Chrome is in a distant third place with just over seven percent.

Just as the success of Windows 7 is driving increased PC sales, Windows 7 is also responsible--at least in part--for the success of Internet Explorer 8. As Windows 7 adoption continues to ramp up through 2010 and into early 2011, expect Internet Explorer 8 to continue following suit.

Since Chrome entered the scene, Internet Explorer has steadily declined, but only by fractions of a percent. The fact that Internet Explorer is only available on Windows, and eight percent of the systems in the world don't run Windows means that Firefox, Chrome, and other browsers get to fight amongst themselves for that chunk of market share.

As Chrome continues to gain market share, it seems like it will mostly cannibalize it from Firefox for the time being. Since IE8 is the fastest growing browser, but Internet Explorer overall is losing market share, what little market share is being whittled away from IE is apparently coming from the attrition of users (finally) abandoning IE6.

Perhaps at some point in the future when Chrome has 25 percent and Firefox has fallen to seven percent, then we can focus on a two-horse race between IE and Chrome. In the meantime, despite the Chrome hype, Internet Explorer 8 is actually the king of the hill.