Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 RC Arrives

[ErRor]

At an art gallery in downtown San Francisco on Thursday, Microsoft announced the availability of Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate, the final milestone before the company's latest Web browser is officially released.

Though that may seem like an incongruous venue for a technology announcement, it reflects Microsoft's attempt to redefine the browser war.

"It's not about the browser," said Ryan Gavin, senior director of Internet Explorer at Microsoft. "We think about ourselves as the theater or the backdrop and the thing you pay for is the play." It's about the Web sites and how the customer sees them.

Never mind that the occasion was billed as an "IE Event." It's not about the browser; it's about unlocking "the beauty of the Web," as Microsoft put it.

Gartner research director Ray Valdes put it another way. "It's a battle Microsoft can't afford to lose," he said. "It's not like they can gain advantage [with a browser], but they have to keep from losing advantage."

It's not about the browser; it's about who defines the future of the online computing.

And Microsoft has seen its advantage slip away. Internet Explorer's market share has been declining for years. In February 2009, Internet Explorer's various versions had a collective global market share of about 70%, according to NetApplications. Today, IE's market share stands at 56%.

Initially, the problem was Mozilla's Firefox browser. More recently, the problem has been Google's Chrome browser, which has been growing at what must be an alarming rate for Microsoft.

Internet Explorer 9 represents Microsoft's attempt to reverse the downward spiral. And the seven updates released since March 2010 suggest the company will at least end the bleeding. Internet Explorer 9 is competitive with the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox and in many ways surpasses them.

Gavin noted that the various IE9 betas have been downloaded 25 million times since September 15, 2010. Among Windows 7 users worldwide, 1.82% are already using IE9...................

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Source : informationWeek

[mike_P]

Well i hope it's more stabile that the beta i have installed....i love IE and it's always has been my favourite due to it's low resuouce consumption, but this beta still needs a lot fo work as most pages don't show up unless you press another button a few times for the image to adjust...all in all the beta is 80% functionable...i'll be giving the RC a go now

---------- Post added at 16:50 ---------- Previous post was at 15:06 ----------

Okay, so i've installed the RC a couple of minutes ago following Error's link and i must say that this build is way faster than the beta...also, the glitch/bug i mentioned the earlier post (showing white pages when loading untill you pressed the "Favourites" button a few times) is gone and the interface seems a bit sharper. The memory and processor consumtion is still way lower than Firefox or Chrome but one annoying thing that happened after the installation (btw this one installs fast, the beta took like 2 hours to install) is that it changed the fonts in my yahoo (mail and YM) to bold.

I like this RC build and i have faith that the final will be even better

[ParamouR]

I have used prior builds of IE 9, its not yet capable to beat its competitors a lot of tweaks and enhancements are required. Instead I would prefer if MS join hands with FirefoX or Opera and make it the default browser, though it would never happen

Billy needs more money

[peepin]

Just install it and remove it immediately , can not find any benefit from ie9 .
I should stick with firefox .

[anon]

Instead I would prefer if MS join hands with FirefoX or Opera and make it the default browser

Mmm, yeah. Right.

Billy needs more money

IE wasn't shareware last time I checked, although you're supposed to be paying for the Windows OS anyway.

There's one thing from IE9 I'd really like to see in Opera, though - GPU acceleration...

[mammamia11]

i have allways been IE user. tryed ff but couldnt keep using it, right now im using the last IE 9RC and it works grate, some sites still not fully working but notice grate speed with lots of my fav sites