IE9 Beta Released - "Beauty of the Web"

On September 15, Microsoft officially unveiled the first beta release of IE9, the latest version of Internet Explorer, the world's most popular web browser. IE9 has been dramatically changed, and is ready to take on other browsers in the market like Chrome and Firefox.

Here is a quick rundown of the biggest changes to IE9:

• New user interface
• Tabs are now located to the right of the address bar
• Unified search and address bar (like Google Chrome)
• Revamped download manager (similar to Firefox's implementation)
• Only works with Windows Vista or Windows 7 machines
• Jump list support
• Pinned web application support
• New speed dial interface for the new tab page

[Image courtesy of Ed Bott at ZDNet.com]

There have also been many behind the scene changes to IE9 including HTML5 support and hardware acceleration, which is enabled by default. For additional information about hardware acceleration take a look at our previous post "The Future of Web Browsers: Why You Should Be Excited Pt. 2."

If you are interested in downloading the newest beta release, I would encourage you to check out Microsoft's IE9 promotional website, www.beautyoftheweb.com.

Finally, if you are looking for a more in-depth review of IE9 including a full rundown of all of the major feature changes, check out Ed Bott's excellent blog post.

The Future of Web Browsers: Why You Should Be Excited Pt. 3

The future of web browsers is a great one, due to the introduction of HTML 5, hardware acceleration, and quickly changing user interfaces in the browser market.

If you do not know what a user interface is, Wikipedia provides a great description:

The user interface is (a place) where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the machine which aids the operator in making operational decisions.

In short, the user interface (also referred to as UI) is what you see when you are using a program. More and more web browsers are improving their UI's to make browsing the web easier on users. They are doing this by cleaning up the UI and making it easier to use and to look at.

Let's take a look at some examples to see the the common UI direction that web-browers are going. First, here are examples of Internet Explorer's UI.

Now, here is a look at the UI's of several recently updated alternative browsers:

The key thing to notice is that browsers are continuing to get more and more minimal. The different design teams have clearly worked hard to make some necessary changes to the browser landscape including:

- Eliminating or hiding unnecessary UI elements to make the browser easier to use.
- Pare down the number of drop-down menus
- Increase focus on the Address bar, back button, and search

Firefox's development team went so far as to create a heat map of the most frequently accessed tools in their browser. I found it to be incredibly interesting to see what tools people used the most. As you can see, this heat map shows where most of the focus in the new UI's of the browsers are coming from. These types of studies influence changes made to the browsers UI, which will benefit the average user.

The future continues to rely more and more on the web, and knowing that designer and developers are making it easier to use is a comforting thought.

Be sure to check out my post next week in this four part series on "The Future of Web Browsers: Why You Should be Excited." Next week I will talk about the interesting push toward web applications.

The Future of Web Browsers: Why You Should Be Excited Pt. 1

Believe it or not, web browsers have really not come all that far.

Yes, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome have upped the ante when it comes to speed, usability, and safety, but the basics behind how a web page is rendered is still the same as it was in 1997, when HTML 4.0 was introduced.

The good news is that, beginning with the introduction of HTML 5, web browsers are beginning to make some serious changes that will benefit all users in the future. Many browsers have added HTML 5 support already including Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Chrome. Microsoft is planning HTML 5 support for Internet Explorer 9.

Let us look at why HTML 5 is going to help you:

• Better looking webpages, that are faster and leaner
• Advanced browser functionality such as "Drag and Drop" and embedded video that doesn't require a plugin, such as Flash.
• Offline storage

You can see that some of these features are already in use on sites such as Gmail, which allows you to "drag and drop" images into your email. Youtube is also adopting HTML 5 and allows some videos to be viewed without the required Adobe Flash plugin. Instead, you are able to watch the video using the HTML 5 player.

If you are running an HTML 5 compatible browser, you can join the beta testing group here for the HTML 5 Youtube video viewer. You can then check out this video of the world celebrating Landon Donovan's game-winning goal.

HTML 5 is just the beginning of why you should be excited about the future of web browsers. Be sure to check out Part 2 next week when I talk about my favorite upcoming feature: Hardware Acceleration.