By nangsa Sabtu, 26 Maret 2011 0 comments

Intenet Explorer is in a curious position of being the most used web browser but also one of the most criticised. Internet Explorer 9 is a big step in the right direction with improvements to performance and interface design.

Sadly there is also a disappointment in that it is only available for Windows Vista and 7, there is no official version for Windows XP. XP users might want to look to one of the alternatives – such as Firefox, Chrome or Opera – for a boost in performance.

The most obvious change on starting Internet Explorer 9 is that all of the browser controls are now on single line, leaving a lot more space for web pages.

Putting tabs and the address bar on the same line does mean that it is often hard to see the whole web address. That is rarely a problem but it would be better if Internet Explorer followed the example of Opera. Opera shows the basic website without the rest of the link unless you click in the address bar itself.

The address box also doubles as search, which should help to remove some confusion when you are using the browser.

We also think Internet Explorer could do a much better job of showing when it is connected to a secure site. As the picture below shows other browsers do a better job of making this clear compared to the small padlock in the Internet Explorer address bar.

how-different-browsers-show-secure-connections

Tabs have been much improved and it is now as quick to open tabs as other browser, a source of much frustration in previous versions. The default tab view is now a list of frequently visited websites in the style of Opera or Chrome. There is also a link to InPrivate browsing when Internet Explorer will not keep a record of your browsing.

Overall performance in webpages (how Internet Explorer handles Javascript, the programming language used in pages) has been significantly improved as you can see on our blog post comparing the performance of Internet Explorer with Firefox and Chrome.

Downloads are also handled much better. The old information bar notification of downloads has been replaced by a bigger bar at the bottom of the window. Once you get used to the new position it is much easier to spot. There are more options of what to do with downloads including one to save and open. This prevents the problem of the download being saved to a hard-to-find temporary folder and then getting lost.

There is now a proper download manager as well. This has a search box that will filter downloads by name and publisher.

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