Working together for standards The Web Standards Project

When the IE team announced their work on IE9 earlier this year, they promised three major improvements:

1. HTML5
2. CSS3
3. speed

Now three “developer previews” in, by all accounts they’re living up to that promise: HTML5 support is increasing rapidly (including support for canvas; as PPK just confirmed, their CSS3 support is nearly complete; and several benchmark tests put them right up there with Chrome in terms of speed.

In playing around with the browser, I’ve been really impressed so far. To me, IE9 really puts the oft-maligned browser on par with the remainder of the browser landscape and even gives them the edge in certain cases. My hat’s off to the IE team, this is great work. I’m excited to see what happens as it continues to develop.

You can download the IE9 preview and check out some of the demos at http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/, but keep in mind that you’ll need Vista or Windows 7 to run it.

Your Replies

#1 On June 28th, 2010 10:28 am Bob Holness replied:

I agree – it looks really promising for IE9. An amazing effort from the team.

But IE9? I’m still stuck developing for IE6. I’d like to see more support for corporations and governments to upgrade (the only people getting hurt now are Microsoft).

I’d also like to know what kind of fixes and updates will be seamlessly pushed out to IE9, like Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Will they start ‘patching’ for rendering bugs? No matter how rigorous your tests, bugs get through. For new features? If not, other browsers will continuously catch up and overtake during IE’s long release cycle.

IE9 looks exciting, but will it be exciting tomorrow, or in 2015?

#2 On June 28th, 2010 2:06 pm Steve replied:

Hope for IE – I’ll believe it when i see it….but seriously, I’ll be happy once they send out a update pill for 6-8 for everyone…

#3 On June 29th, 2010 1:08 am Alasdair King replied:

I was quietly hoping they wouldn’t support CANVAS: the thought of webpages that suddenly aren’t nice rendered marked-up text but products of procedural drawing using an API is going to be an accessibility nightmare. One of the big problems for screenreader users is finding stuff on a page: when the order of content no longer even follows the code and can change dynamically this will get much harder. Still, can’t stop progress, and the richer interfaces will give you more ways to support people with other disabilities and illiteracy.

#4 On June 29th, 2010 12:04 pm Sarah Jane replied:

I’ve been using firefox a lot and seem to keep running into problems with it. Prior to that I was using IE, but it was a magnet for viruses. Most of my friends have switched over to Chrome now, but do you think it is worthwhile to go back to IE?

#5 On June 29th, 2010 2:54 pm Tom replied:

These are really great news. Especially the CSS3 support is a long desired feature. Thanks for the IE9 preview link. I´ll check it out. Is a IE9 release date known at present?

#6 On June 30th, 2010 9:28 am Webstandard-Blog replied:

The IE team did a really good job Aaron. This third platform preview (the first beta is hopefully coming soon) is fast and “knows” CSS3 of which I haven’t dared to dream. This IE version is hopefully “the end” of IE6!

#7 On June 30th, 2010 5:45 pm Steve (independent courier and wannabe web entrepreneur) replied:

That’s excellent news, I’d like to use a MS product instead of being forced to use the feature rich Mozilla as it’s simply better and more stable than every IE previously. I tried Asteroid Belt and Mr Potatoe Gun, brilliant. Hurry up and roll it out MS, you have many potential browser customers who’d love to return to you.

Steve

#8 On July 2nd, 2010 2:39 am Rudolph replied:

There is no point in them releasing IE9 unless they allow it to easily update computers with IE6. Preferably without the WGA headache. Most users do not want to budge into newer operating systems because they don’t want to pay to be treated like criminals.

And there is no point in IE9 until it can replace IE6 everywhere. Until then, there is no way I’m going to stop advocating Opera, Chrome and Firefox.

#9 On July 5th, 2010 9:38 pm Sheds replied:

It’ll be great once they finally release the final version.

Hopefully they’ll secretly be aiming above and beyond the other current browsers otherwise they are just going to be playing catch up again.

Having said as long as they can match what they’ve announced it’s certainly looking like the best browser option at the moment IMO.

#10 On July 6th, 2010 12:44 pm Denounce IE replied:

[...] and friends agree with you. Check out this link praising IE9 from the Web Standards Project: http://www.webstandards.org/2010/06/…all-promising/ And, in all fairness, lets not forget that the IE team *invented* XMLHttpRequest and pioneered [...]

#11 On July 8th, 2010 4:27 pm Marco Sanchez replied:

I`m really excited. Hope IE9 will live up to expecations :)

#12 On July 16th, 2010 2:13 am Gutschein replied:

Thank you very much for the facts and preview link. Any informations about an release date? 2010 or 2011?

I hope IE9 will support CSS3 and sometimes all browsers provide the same result. Its still complicated to get the same look in different browsers with only one standard css.

Best regards from germany.

#13 On July 18th, 2010 5:07 am Gutscheine replied:

I already checked the IE9 preview and it seems they have done their homework.

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