Internet Explorer 9 leaks look familiar
What are claimed to be leaked screenshots of Internet Explorer 9 show features very reminiscent of rival browsers. But we won’t have to wait long to be sure: the beta edition has now been confirmed for September.
Chinese site CNBeta.com says it has received an advance copy of the browser. It’s report doesn’t bring much beyond three feature screenshots and the news that it took five minutes to install (which sounds quite long but is hardly a dealbreaker). The article though, or at least Google’s automated translation of it, gives the impression those three features are about it when it comes to improvements the user can see.
Change number one is that opening a new tab now brings up a display of up to 10 frequently visited sites in thumbnail form. Aside from the fact that Chrome only displays eight, that’s exactly the same as Google’s browser. That isn’t to say it isn’t a useful feature, albeit it one which brings home exactly how you do waste time online.
The second new feature is that freshly installed add-ons can be activated instantly with no need to refresh a page or restart Internet Explorer. Again, useful but not exactly the stuff TV commercials are made of.
Finally there’s an all-in-one window to manage active downloads and search for files you’ve already downloaded. How very Chrome/Firefox.
The only other real detail is some performance test data, the only result being easily decipherable being a score of 53/100 on the Acid3 test for web standard compatibility. That would be a huge improvement on the 20/100 scored by IE8, but far short of the 83/100 Microsoft has claimed for its latest in-development edition.
That raises questions about exactly what CNBeta.com was working with. It may be that it has a version where the developers were concentrating on getting things right “under the hood” and that there are, or were, new features yet to be built in.
We’ll find out in September, which Microsoft pegged this week for the release of the beta testing edition, though it didn’t confirm rumors of a Sept. 2 date. Going by previous versions, we’re likely looking at a late 2011 date for the final release.
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