Any Thoughts on IE9 Beta?

[buwish]

With the release of IE9 beta today, I was curious if any members were trying it out and if so, what you think of it?

I'm giving it a shot now and while different from a UI point of view, it does seem faster than IE8. But at this point, I don't think that it's faster than Chrome, Firefox, or Opera. If MS wants IE9 to work well, they're going to have to up page load times and perhaps open up a sort of "add-ons" site so users can configure it as they see fit.

That's just me though. Anyone else?

 

[jimmysmitty]

Well so far so good for me. I tried it at work and it really felt smooth compared to IE8 but thats also with a T1 and about 20+ PCs running on the internet and doing updates.

Here at home it feels much much better. I am in the process of testing Firefox 4.6 and IE9 beta with a number of the provided MS ones and with the normal (Acid 3, SunSpider etc). Will post them once I am done.

The only one I wont run is probably Googles. Don't really like it that much plus I don't like having Googles software on my PC but here are the results for IE9 Beta vs FF from my PC (Not for the dial up peoples!!!!). Specs are as follows:

Asus P5K-E Deluxe Wifi -AP
Intel C2Q6600 G0 stepping @ 3GHz 1.25v
Zalman CPNS 9700 Cooler
4Gigs Corsair XMS2 PC8500
2x Seagate 500GB SATA 300 in Raid 0
ATI Radeon HD4870 1GB GDDR5
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatality Extreme Gamer(has the 64MB X-RAM)
Corsair TX850W
Apevia X-Navigator Case. It has a lot of blue lights
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech G500 wOOt
Windows 7 Ultimate, lovin it

Fire Fox Beta 4.6 with hardware acceleration enabled

IE9 Beta

Running Cox with a 25Mbit/5Mbit (sometimes goes to 30Mbit/7Mbit) connection

First up is the Psychadelic:

FF Beta 4.6 1769:

IE9 Beta 1810:

Not a major win but IE pulls ahead by a small amount.

SunSpider side by side:

IE9 Beta is faster by 120ms. Looks like Microsoft hit the sub 400ms range, FF has yet to I guess. In some areas though, FF is faster and is still in Beta stages just like IE9. Both will probably have a lot of improvement for the final release. IE9 was 331.1ms and FF 4.6 was 455.0ms

http/img684.imageshack.us/img684/953/ie9test2.jpg

Acid 3:

FF Beta 4.6 97/100:

IE9 Beta 95/100:

Almost even, FF pulls ahead here by a small amount. hopefully both will be 100/100 by final.

CSS3 Selectors:

FF Beta 4.6 41/41:

IE9 Beta 41/41:

both pass this with flying colors.

FishIE Tank with 1000 fish:

FF Beta 4.6 23FPS:

IE9 Beta 47FPS:

IE passes FF in this by 2x. Might be something with FF code and D2DWrite. Hopefully might get better with updates.

HTML5 Speed Reading:

FF Beta 4.6 450 Seconds:

 

[jimmysmitty]

IE9 Beta 10 Seconds:

IE9 stomps FF on this. Not sure why. FF shouldn't have trouble.

Video Kaleidoscope:

FF Beta 4.6 no support for mpeg4:

IE9 Beta 60FPS:

DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!! Anywho. Not sure whats up here either. It states FF doesn't have support for mpeg4 embeded into the browser. Maybe it will come with a full version. Maybe not. We will have to test them again when they are finalized.

In most test though, IE9 Beta is on par with FF Beta 4.6 or better. I like the benchmarks on the IE9 test page because they are actually something on the web and not just some random benchmark that can't truly tell you how fast it will load a web page. Microsoft joined up with W3C so I doubt IE9 will be as bad as anything previous (IE7 bleh).

For me though, I will still use both. IE9 for my main stuff like THG, Youtube and such and FF for some specialty sites I have that use a plugin only for it to watch movies and stuff. Both feel great. in terms of looks though, I do like IE9s. The URL bar is next to the tabs which is where you would look plus it integrates with Aero for Vista and even moreso with Windows 7.

Either way bith are great browsers and hopefully IE9 becoming more of a threat to the others will spur more innovation and a better overall web experience. I know that embeded hardware acceleration will change the web a lot. Soon we will have HD content delivered right through the browser without any plugins needed. It will be an interesting next few years I do say.

 

[buwish]

Excellent review/test results! I was contemplating doing so myself, but I'll believe your results😉 I agree with you though, as thus far it seems as if MS has finally caught up to the other browsers on the market, at least for now. With a bit of tweaking, I'm thinking that IE9 will easily contend with the likes of Opera, Chrome, Firefox, etc... If it does, we'll know when the market shares come out a few months after the final version has been released. For the time being, I'll use IE9 on and off to really get a feel for it, but rendering wise, I'm still sold on Opera.

 

[buwish]

Two other things on IE9 beta. One, I tried out Adobe's 64 bit version of Flash (i.e. "Square) and it seems to work pretty well. For the time being, no complaints. Two, for some reason or another I cannot get it to install on my desktop, which like my laptop has W7 64 bit. All updates have been installed, so I'm a bit clueless there. If anyone else is having the issue, your not the only one.

 

[RetiredChief]

Buwish - glad someone opened this thread, was interest in some comments

Great testing jimmy!

Downloaded win 7 32 and 64 bit, and vista 32 bit yesterday. Installed on one laptop last night and 2nd laptop this morning (Both laptops 4 gigs ram/win 7 32 Bit). Installation went very smotth, but have not had a chance to play with. (currently @ work, on a Win XP laptop, can not log on with my laptop). Plan on installing on Desktop (Win 7 64 bit) tonight - will not be home until after 9:30 PM as going to bowling ally after work.

 

[Silenssimo]

Two other things on IE9 beta. One, I tried out Adobe's 64 bit version of Flash (i.e. "Square) and it seems to work pretty well. For the time being, no complaints. Two, for some reason or another I cannot get it to install on my desktop, which like my laptop has W7 64 bit. All updates have been installed, so I'm a bit clueless there. If anyone else is having the issue, your not the only one.

I also run a Flash test, HD video via YouTube... IE9beta1 took a bunch from both FF4beta6 and Chrome6.1. It even dropped frames... and used most system resources while having the slowest playback. Whole test at my blog.

While testing these two browsers against each other, always keep in mind (and report) WHO MAKES THE TEST SITES or applications. It's pretty obvious that home field matters in this game...

I'll keep on using Chrome and FF, even that IE9 looks good.

 

[stormyg]

No reason to use IE9, as Opera totally exceeds it (and FF/Chrome) in performance/features/relability/security/webstandards fronts.

Why go back to hamburgers, when you already eat the finest Steak?

Opera 10.70 is even better still, with some cool new stuff like syncing of content block filters, new mail/rss and bookmark panels, with more stuff coming long at a rapid pace... The best is getting even better, so I don't care about IE/FF/Chrome.

 

[Bolbi]

Well, not much new for me to add. IE9 is much better than IE8 and is competitive performance-wise with the latest dev/beta builds of the other browsers. Of course, it'll mainly be fighting for market share with Firefox and Chrome. Once Chrome implements layers acceleration by default and Firefox adds its new JaegerMonkey JScript engine, we'll have an excellent fight for the top spot between those three.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I also run a Flash test, HD video via YouTube... IE9beta1 took a bunch from both FF4beta6 and Chrome6.1. It even dropped frames... and used most system resources while having the slowest playback. Whole test at my blog.

While testing these two browsers against each other, always keep in mind (and report) WHO MAKES THE TEST SITES or applications. It's pretty obvious that home field matters in this game...

I'll keep on using Chrome and FF, even that IE9 looks good.

This I agree with when it comes to benchmarking appliations. I dont mind SunSpider or Acid3 but I cannot run Googles test. Its obvious it will always lean towards Chrome.

I don't mind the ones done by Microsoft due to the fact that they all utilize something every other browser can as well. FF has the same hardware acceleration abilities as IE9, albiet its not as ironed out so a lot of the tests should be more useable.

As for Flash, I don't really care for it anymore. It was great back in the day but ever since Adobe bought up Macromedia, it seems to have slowly gotten worse. I get the same loading speeds on a 7Mbps DSL line as I do on a 25Mbps cable line. Plus with most browsers fully supporting HTML5 and IE9 including mpeg4, H.264 and s few other codecs in the browser nativley, it will probably have a hard time keeping itself alive.

I could test Flash though. Problem is that I don't think FF has a 64bit mode unless it always runs in 64bit.

 

[buwish]

I guess what everyone is saying that it is refreshing to see that MS has finally updated their aging Internet browser. But I suspect that many of us think that it may be too little, too late. Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc... have made giant leaps forward (or were created) in the time that it took MS to start work on a new browser, which in turn have left MS in the dust till now.

As I said above, I like the new IE, but I'm still sold on Opera. I don't see any reason why I should switch to IE when it reaches the final build. I'm sure others agree in regard to your preferred browsers. Or do you?

 

[Bolbi]

I guess what everyone is saying that it is refreshing to see that MS has finally updated their aging Internet browser. But I suspect that many of us think that it may be too little, too late. Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc... have made giant leaps forward (or were created) in the time that it took MS to start work on a new browser, which in turn have left MS in the dust till now.

As I said above, I like the new IE, but I'm still sold on Opera. I don't see any reason why I should switch to IE when it reaches the final build. I'm sure others agree in regard to your preferred browsers. Or do you?

Yup, I agree with that assessment. Firefox is still my preferred browser, but IMO Chrome and Opera are also excellent.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I guess what everyone is saying that it is refreshing to see that MS has finally updated their aging Internet browser. But I suspect that many of us think that it may be too little, too late. Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc... have made giant leaps forward (or were created) in the time that it took MS to start work on a new browser, which in turn have left MS in the dust till now.

As I said above, I like the new IE, but I'm still sold on Opera. I don't see any reason why I should switch to IE when it reaches the final build. I'm sure others agree in regard to your preferred browsers. Or do you?

I am not a fan of Opera. Looks a lot like Firefox. But the one thing they have is that they have focused on speed more than ability such as with current IE and FF utilizing embeded codec support and hardware acceleration. Plus since it uses open source components it can have a rough time if those components stop being updates.

I will NEVER install Chrome or Safari. Apple is crap and Google is not crap so much as they install way too many extra things without telling you. IE comes with Windows so nothing but IE will install and FF has nothing extra beyond FF.

FF has plug-ins to work with a web stie I use to catch TV shows I miss in DivX format. Plus most of the web is still optimized towards IE since its still the largest used browser.

I am happy with IE9 beta. I like the idea of embeded codec support and hardware acceleration. I mean IE9 should be able to use any codecs that are in WMPs library, or so you would think.

 

[buwish]

I agree that embedded codec support is a huge plus. Imagine being able to view almost any format from within the browser itself. Of course, it'll be some time before we get that far, but one can only hope.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I went to www.youtube.com/html5 and enroled in the open beta testing and I cn ay I do not regret it. In fact if it has HTML5 for a video its fast as all get out. I started a 1080P HD L4D video and it just went. In Flash I have to wait for it to load.

No difference in the quality . But there are a few things that Youtube probably has to iron out. No true full screen mode yet (you can by doing the F11 browser full screen in IE9) and every so often the status bar pops up even if you didn't move the mouse.

I think HTML5 alone could end Flash.

 

[Tamz_msc]

Excellent result Jimmy, could you run FF 4.0 beta 7 pre that uses JagerMonkey?It cuts 100 ms in the sunspider test.I wish I had IE9, but I'm still on XP.🙁

 

[jimmysmitty]

Excellent result Jimmy, could you run FF 4.0 beta 7 pre that uses JagerMonkey?It cuts 100 ms in the sunspider test.I wish I had IE9, but I'm still on XP.🙁

Didn't know they had 4 Beta 7 up yet. I looked for it and it didn't show anything beyond 4 Beta 6. I thought Beta 6 also used the JagerMonkey Java Script engine.

When I get a chance I will. Might not be tonight since VALVe is pushing out a new DLC for L4D/L4D2. Can't wait to watch Bill take on an army of tanks.

 

[andrern2000]

If they make the IE9 lighter to run, I'm gonna give it a try. otherwise, i think i'd still choose FFox or Chrome.

@jimmysmitty is that sacrifice u'r talking about?

 

[dEAne]

The codecs on IE9 is a good thing but IE9 is huge like an elephant it needs a decent unit to run it.

 

[jimmysmitty]

If they make the IE9 lighter to run, I'm gonna give it a try. otherwise, i think i'd still choose FFox or Chrome.

@jimmysmitty is that sacrifice u'r talking about?

Yes the Sacrifice. Freakin epic. Bill owns 3 tanks.

I would have let Louis die. The screams of sweet sweet freedom from pills.

The codecs on IE9 is a good thing but IE9 is huge like an elephant it needs a decent unit to run it.

IDK about that. I am running it on my work bench and my home PC. My home PC is 4GB DDR2 8500, Q6600 @ 3GHz and a HD4870 1GB OCed to HD4890 speeds. It runs IE9 great. My work bench on the other hand is a Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86GHz, 4GB of DDR2 and a 965G IGP which uses 256MB of the memory and it still runs great, even when running a mpeg4 video like the kaleidascope. My work bench used to have 2GB of DDR2 and it still worked great with IE9.

I might just be lucky but I doubt it. Then again I am running Windows 7 and IE9 was more geared towards Windoes 7 than Vista.