Yesterday Internet Explorer 9 has been officially launched. I think IE9 is better than Internet Explorer 8, but there are better Web browser choices out there.
Internet Explorer 9 wont be my web-browser and let me explain why I did this choise. Here’s why:
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Operating System Incompatibilities
IE 9 works only with Windows 7 and Vista. That’s it. What if you are XP users? You’re out of luck. There’s no IE 9 for XP.
According to NetMarketShare, the majority of Windows users are still running XP, 55%, to 23% running Windows 7 and 11% with Vista, but there’s still no IE 9 for XP.
Microsoft also doesn’t support IE 9 on Mac OS X or Linux either. Indeed, Dean Hachamovitch, the head of Microsoft’s IE’s engineering group boasted of it at the SXSW (South by Southwest Conferences and Festivals). Hachamovitch is reported as saying, “Other browsers dilute their engineering investments across systems. Because we focus exclusively on one, IE can make the most of the Windows experience and the hardware.”
But Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all seem to manage it pretty well. And, even if Microsoft wants to ignore Mac OS X and Linux, why not at least a version for XP anyway? The answer, of course, is that Microsoft wants to sell you Windows 7, even if you don’t need or want it.
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Performances
Yes, IE 9 actually is the winner at the SunSpider JavaScript 0.91 benchmark, but a fuller suite of tests reveals that IE 9 actually loses to Chrome and even to the Firefox 4 release candidate on other benchmarks.
I’ve also been finding in my day-to-day use that Chrome just feels faster than IE9.
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The 64-bit version
The 64-bit model is very bad. It is several times slower than all the other browsers when it comes to JavaScript.
Of course, if you have Windows 64-bit, when you go to download IE9 download process forces you to download the inferior 64bit version of IE9. Remember, if you run a Windows 64-bit system you can also run the 32-bit version of internet explorer.
You should be able to choose which version you want, but Microsoft forces you to use the 64-bit version.
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Low Security Level
Make no mistake about it, IE 9 is much more secure than any previous version of IE, but that doesn’t mean it’s as secure as its Web browser rivals.
For example, these days when attacking Web-plug ins, such as Adobe Flash is every hacker’s favorite new trick, IE 9 doesn’t alert you if you’re not running the latest plug-in, which Firefox does with Plug-in Check or automatically update them ala Chrome with its built-in PDF and Flash software.
Better still, in Chrome, even if your plug-in gets hit by zero day attack, the most frequently attacked plug-ins, Adobe Flash Player and Reader, run in a sandbox so the attack can’t get to your PC’s operating system.
So, sure IE 9 is safer, but it you really want to be safe, Chrome and Firefox appear to be the better choices.
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Compatibility Issues
Ed Bott, ZDNet’s resident Windows tech expert said:
“I’ve spent hours studying the different signals that websites and Internet Explorer can exchange with one another, and I came away with a splitting headache. More importantly, even after reading that I’ve found multiple sites that simply won’t display quite right in IE 9. On one page hosted at blogspot.com, the only way to get text to wrap properly was to press F12 and use the Developer Tools to send a different User-Agent string to the site.”
In addition, IE 9 actually does a lousy job of supporting HTML 5. In the HTML 5 Web page test, IE 9 comes behind all the other modern Web browsers.
So, do you want a great Web browser for your Windows machine, or any other system, I recommend Chrome 10.
Firefox 4 also looks like its worth considering.
But, IE 9? The best I can say is that if you absolutely insist on running a Microsoft browser, and you’re not running XP and you’re sure you’re running the 32-bit version then yes, it’s an acceptable choice.
The original source of the article was ZDNet with an article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Five Reasons not to “Upgrade” to Windows’ Internet Explorer 9
Explorer 9 …do not download. It erased all of my names and passwords….Richard……I want to get rid of it, and, of course, I cannot.
what a waste of time…. been having problems with ie 8 not loading up some flash files, so upgraded to ie 9…. now it won’t even read u tube videos. Spent hours going in a circle with their tech help… ” remove adobe flash, download it again, go into internet options, tools blah blah blah”,,,,, hours later vexed and going back to firefox and chrome no problems seeing flash or videos via those browsers???
I’ve never had so much problems. What a piece of crap. Its protects me so much, I can barely do any work!!! I’m off IE9…I gave it 2 chances and it is a miserable piece of cr@p! Installed Chrome and thinking of installing Firefox…
jon,i have same problem, have 5 computers 2 dell high end with windows 7 and internet 9 no problem with flash on those two. 1 emachine 1 gateway running windows vista [for the kids] internet 9, flash will not load no matter what, next 1 dell running xp internet 8, flash will not load also. tired of trying to reinstall flash and looking around for fixes. on the 3 older computers i installed [fire fox 4.0] and then install flash no problem. my thoughts are that there is a problem with internet explorer, kids computers all have high end graphic cards and i am taking care of them. try fire fox 4
This damn IE9 doesn’t load flash, won’t let me download. Doesn’t even give the download prompt.
Status: I have to uninstall it and revert to IE8 or use one of the other browsers – Mozilla Firefox and Chrome. Both work just great.
Hasn’t IE used sandboxing since IE8 was released?
“On one page hosted at blogspot.com, the only way to get text to wrap properly was to press F12 and use the Developer Tools to send a different User-Agent string to the site.”
What this tells us is that blogspot.com looked for IE’s user agent, and served it inferior code, which broke the page. By changing the user agent, Ed Bott fooled the website into thinking that he is using a non-IE browser. Then the site served IE9 the valid code, which let IE display the page properly.
As for the “HTML 5 test”, W3C’s own tests put IE at the top of the list. I would trust W3C’s own tests than some unofficial “HTML 5 test” for a standard that is not even finalised.
As developer, i stopped making hacks for IE to let the page look like in other browsers (especially for IE7 and IE8). The javascript engine of IE8 is slower than IE7, IE8 shows the page better. I concentrate on being W3C and use HTML5 and CSS3 features, in IE9 it is not so bad but has 16 modes to render pages and can be easily turn on by accident (that is really stupid) and does not exactly behave like the earlier versions of IE.
I complain the user running IE and put some message on the top of the screen with a warning that says that the browser is out-of-date and not using modern standards. The user can click it away or can go to a page to see screenshots rendered in another browser so the user is able to see the difference. But what do you think about that, is this a good way to let users know that the browser they are using is an evil one?
I want that stupid hog IE go away, safe me time and to concentrate to make “A beautiful web” instead of being busy with a Microsoft piece of crap. Markedshare must tear down! What can we effectively do about this without the user to scare that it will leave the page?
I also concentrate on the Google speedtest, reduce the use of images (connections) and use CSS3 style features but is mostly impossible when users still using IE7 and IE8 (and sometimes IE9). I don’t want three different stylesheets, i don’t want IE-hacks, i don’t want comment conditions, i don’t want IE specific things!
So what is the best way without scare users to let them know there are better alternatives?
IE9 does not supports wifi connections.
you have an interesting writing style, you appear to be somebody I would really like to meet someday would in all probability be best friends
i e 9 won’t let me open anything. It won’t even l;et me unsubscribe anything????