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201016 Mar
Microsoft today announced further details of their forthcoming Internet Explorer 9 browser, along with the first platform preview for developers, at their MIX Conference 2010.
Amongst the announcements comes increased support for CSS3, with support promised for CSS3 Selectors, Namespaces, Colors, Values, Backgrounds & Borders and Fonts, along with increased support for HTML5 and improvements in JavaScript performance.
The platform preview, downloadable from the Internet Explorer website, comes with a number of demonstrations including those for CSS3 border-radius and selectors. The preview also scores an impressive 578/578 on our CSS3 Selectors Test and an improved 55/100 on the Acid 3 test, with further improvements promised before the final release.
You can read more on the Internet Explorer blog, or download the platform preview here.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
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Comments
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Yeah,
a good IE -
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Microsoft isn’t saying when it will come out. The best they can do is say parts of IE9 will work almost as good as browsers did 3 years ago.
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55/100 is still pretty rubbish considering their current modern rival browsers have been scoring 90+ for years.
Glad to see they’re pushing forward with CSS3 and HTML5 though, but they need to push this browser alot more and quickly and get everyone to upgrade their ie version to ie9 otherwise they’re rivals are still going to be light years ahead.
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I can’t believe it, finally some IE which will not be a shame to use :D This could make my job sooo much easier
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Wow! They made a preview version, so I can install it without destroying my normal install. :)
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something’s up with the anti-aliasing, and why is there no URL bar? also can’t open local files
way to take a good idea and make it useless, MS
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Richard Ayotte says:Comment » March 16th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
I doesn’t work on Windows XP.
Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview does not support any operating system earlier than Windows Vista SP2
Thanks MS.
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Why do so many people keep referring to Acid 3 as the
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[Posted accidentally]
Why do so many people keep referring to Acid 3 as the one and best test for compatibility? Sure – it’s easy to compare, but it doesn’t focus on *everything* that’s important, and perhaps too much on some parts.
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Great!!! Soon we’re gonna have to support Ie6, ie7, ie8 AND ie9!!!! That’s great news!
It sounds so good that one day we won’t have to worry so much for hacking for a buggy browser. I don’t even remember how to code good CSS now, crap!
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Hey,
That’s great news for us finally Microsoft has done something new to beat Firefox. But what about the older version peoples are not interesting in upgrading there browsers. They are still using IE6. I am a front-end developer i am facing lots of problems to make site compatible for every browsers. I think Microsoft should have to do something. Like mandatory updates…Thanks
Gautam Murarka
Sr. Web Cum UI Designer
+91-9313413947 -
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IE will probably be more focused on bringing a more “secure” customer browsing experience rather than fulfilling the needs of web design & developers
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Oh my god, not another one. When will IE finally die?!?! as a web designer can say that IE is the worst web browser that has ever been and probably ever be.
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It’s the same thing everywhere… Blind IE bashing. *sigh*
@Rob: whether in terms of performances or standards support, other browsers certainly did not offer anything that good 3 years ago. 3 years ago, Chrome was unheard of, and Firefox 2 was the newest Firefox version around.
@Nick: Serious web developers don’t judge browsers standards support based on the Acid3. Acid3 was started with good intentions, but turned out to be all about buzz, and uneducated users keep clamoring for more Acid3 points. Yay.
@Jorge: the usual thing I keep reading everywhere… Unless you’re not doing it right, or you want to use experimental features (CSS3 and stuff), IE8 shouldn’t give you much trouble at all. The only time I ever needed to add extra specific styling for IE8 was too add filter equivalents to opacity. And to be perfectly unbiased, it really doesn’t look like making sites work with IE9 will require any more work than ensuring your stuff works with other modern browsers. So if you’re sniffing for IE9 when it comes out, as if it were IE6 or 7, chances are that you just don’t get it.
And if you properly learn and understand CSS, you don’t just forget it all of a sudden. Or you have Alzheimer.Besides, most web developers who still bother that much with IE6 do so either because they really want to (even professionally). Let your site degrade gracefully enough with IE6, and move on. Most big sites have already dropped support for IE6. You don’t have to block IE6 either, just don’t bother with it.
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@Jorge: agreed. It’s just going to be another thing to support whilst most everyone out there is still using IE6 or IE7. Now we have IE8 people, and then we’re going to have IE9 people. Seriously…the amount of style negotiation is just reprehensible!
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There is only one thing: it only run’s on Vista SP2 or newer – meaning, that with IE8 we will have the next IE6, since XP still is very widely spread.
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Messaging from within IE9 now.
I think it’s a great addition. I love some competition. If we all discard now that would only increase webkit and then webkit would take over the IE dominance. Just people that don’t update their browser should be “shot”(it’s sort of speak, I won’t really shoot you). IE8 is already doable to develop for(although I really miss some css3 and default html5 functionality)
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Hm, replying from within IE9 doesn’t seem to work. I tried. Or are messages filtered here?
My opinion. I love it, I still don’t like IE but I love the competition. If they would stop developing IE maybe webkit would become the new IE6. IE6 was good when it was first released. Microsoft just didn’t have competition for a too long time. So I’m embracing that.
The problem isn’t IE6 or IE7. The problem is the users who still use those outdated browsers. IE8 is already doable to develop for, I just miss some css3 and html5 support. -
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@Stifu
I agree with what you’re saying, I was really impressed with all the improvements in IE8. To the point that in my last project I didn’t have to write an extra line of code for IE8.I’m just amazed that you actually have to support 4!!! different versions of the same application. I understand 2 or 3 in some cases and it’s not for a long period of time, but 4 versions.
In regards to IE6 support, it’s not my decision to support it or not, and I think it’s the same situation for most of us. I don’t usually work directly with the client, but they just don’t understand the reasons. Besides that, if you see that ~10% of your website’s visitors are coming from IE6, you can’t just let them see the “gracefully degraded” version.
Oh, and BTW I don’t have Alzheimer, I was just trying to make a funny comment but you didn’t get it.
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I have left IE 3 years ago & I Never change my idea.
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This IE9 preview is definitely better than IE8 and therefor one reason to have one eye for it. I checked some Benchmark-Tests (JavaScript) and the IE Preview is (sometimes) better than Firefox and Safari. Let’s see what Microsoft will change until this IE-Version will be “alpha” or “beta”?
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People are proving to be extremely closed-minded about IE. What I find very ironic is that a lot of them say things like, “MS, just stop developing IE!”
That happened. They stopped after IE6. And you see what happened?Years later, they decided to pick up the pieces and race to bring IE into the future. IE7 is still annoying, but IE8 is a perfectly good browser, even if it’s missing the experimental features. IE9 should be competitive.
A few misconceptions:
-Acid3 has little to do with compatibility. It tests a few edge cases; a sort of wish-list for developers, so that their obscure code works exactly as intended in all browsers. It can be important for high-level cross-browser applications, but you really wouldn’t tell a difference between browsers in a regular web-page.
-Firefox has historically had a fairly ‘low’ Acid3 score, with 71 in 3.0, though the recent builds have brought it into the 90s. The Firefox team has even said something like, “We aren’t going to bend over backwards for it, because it’s not really what we’re trying to do.”
-IE7 is dying faster than IE6, and IE8 is soaking both of them up. You don’t have to ‘support’ IE8 in the same ways as IE6 and IE7, any more than you have to ‘support’ Firefox or Safari or Chrome. Things tend to test pretty well in them, by default. IE9 will be similar.
-There is a non-negligible percentage of users on Firefox 2, Firefox 3, and Firefox 3.5. Nobody is complaining about supporting four different versions of Firefox. Firefox 2 doesn’t support display:inline-block (though it supports -moz-inline-stack). Thankfully, Fx2 is basically dead, but I still know people who use it. -
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I am old enough to remember when IE6 was the good browser, Yahoo! was thee search engine and Apple was a has been.
ACID 3 is nice to have, but like any synthetic benchmark or test it can be gamed. Also 100% ACID 3 is not guarantee of standards compliance.
A standards complaint IE released on a regular schedule will help us all. Hell of a lot better than letting it rot like they did with IE6.
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Pet peeve with FireFox is that everytime I open it, there it installs a new version. They seem to update more than Adobe. By the time FireFox finishes patching, I’ve already found the answer, created the post, or did w/e I was doing in IE. Why I never opened it ever again.
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@Dan: it took Mozilla 2 months to go from Firefox 3.6 to 3.6.2… Unless you open it once a month, it shouldn’t install a new version each time. Either that, or you’re on a nightly build.
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Well, may be some day (may be after 2 years) IE would be as good as FF and Safari today. I am wondering what would FF and Safari look like that day. :)
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while i’m not particularly happy with msft’s almost piecemeal bit-by-bit development and release process, it is notable progress, and proof the company is buckling to pressure to provide better support for popular features.
@matt nails it though. msft understands now understands that consumers will not use their browser if it can’t support a certain level of quality in multimedia & conventional content. so, its more likely to address user needs than developer pangs :[ @Stifu has a good point. when ie9 is released it becomes msft’s best effort at a fully-loaded browser, so as a designer/developer you need only worry about supporting ie9, well.. and ie8 for cover.
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Thanks God , for supporting CSS3, Border radius and more css3 selector. hopefully it is better version for Web designer or developer who always worry about how to fix IE Bug. thanks you very much.
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So I thought the preview was supposed to support CSS3. I’ve tried browsing a few different sites with border-radius and box-shadow, and IE9 fails. So were exactly are the new features? If it only supports CSS3 in MS demos, whats the point?
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Justin says:Comment » March 31st, 2010 at 10:20 pm
“Mmm, border-radius works (y)”
But I can not get box-shadow to work??
I’ve got it working in FF and Chrome but not ie9 -
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@Greg, maybe those sites support vendor prefixed selectors. Keep in mind that IE supports the W3C non-prefixed version, like Opera.
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Justin says:Comment » March 31st, 2010 at 10:37 pm
/* Does not Work ie9 */
box-shadow: 3px 3px 2px #000;/* Works ie9 */
border-radius: 10px;/* Works FireFox */
-moz-box-shadow: 3px 3px 2px #000;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;/* Works Chrome */
-webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 2px #000;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px; -
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Will this mean I have to buy Windows Vista/7? I mean, HAVE TO?
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mmm… IE is a program with which help, is possible to come on mozilla and to download a normal browser © V.Savcenko
:))
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IE 9 looks great, and I was not expecting HTML 5 support so soon from them, HTML 5 needed to come into play soon and I was expecting Internet Explorer to halt is’s progression, so glad I was incorrect.
CSS 3 support = great, sure some missing features but if they promise more I expect they will cover most of CSS 3 before it’s final release, fingers crossed! :)
I believe IE 9 will be an easy browser to support for, and people worrying about previous versions, well, IE 8 is pretty good with CSS2, and most CSS3 features fail gracefully.
What concerns me is if what I read above is correct, if it isn’t working on XP, which still a high population use, many people will not be able to upgrade, which is a silly move for MS.
I also want to see them rid of IE 6 completely! -
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@Andre, I think they have come far already. Of course none of the CSS3 *bling-bling* work in IE8, but a lot of CSS3 already work in Mozilla, webkit browsers and Opera without the browserprefix.
Text-shadow, multiple backgrounds, RGBA and HSLA work in Mozilla and webkit and Opera.
Rounded corners works in both Chrome and Opera, but not in mozilla and Safari. I whish thay had done a bit more about this, but when Opera and Chrome agree, it can only be short time.
Opera supports everyone of these *and* box-shadow. Hopefully IE9 will not fail on any of them.
Those are the basic needs in my opinion. And besides using all of them together is demanding a lot from the PC for calculation. Use CSS3 wisely… it is easy to exaggerate.
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thumbnail says:Comment » April 21st, 2010 at 8:20 pm
9 freaking versions later, they did, what they saw as an inpossible target…
an WORKING ie :o
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Ugh, freaking spammers…why is it always the most random effing things they’re posting anyway? At least a couple of them link to sites that were deactivated by Comcast! Haha! Go Comcast!!!
Can’t wait until IE9 comes out, and for Firefox to support the standard border-radius property as IE9 preview and final IE9 will, along with several other things. I’m sure we’ll have that in the next Moz update patch, or not. Who knows? All I know is that I can’t wait for Mozilla to support all the animation properties Arora, Safari, Chrome, and Opera nightlies do. But…I’m patient.
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Why is nobody maintaining this site? Someone should at least have something to say. And someone should be able to delete all spam. What actually happened to the maintainers?
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Rune Jensen says:Comment » May 3rd, 2010 at 1:03 pm
True. The spam on the page makes it less interesting. I guess if nobody does anything to get rid of it, the site will end up like thousands of forums filled with spam and no visitors but spambots.
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