Microsoft launches IE9 beta

Microsoft de-clutters the interface, promises faster performance

Microsoft unveils cleaner IE9 user interface at beta launch

Microsoft launched the first beta of its Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) browser today, highlighting its stripped-down interface and features designed to make accessing web sites faster.

UK web product manager Ian Moulster said Microsoft decided to give IE9 a less cluttered interface after analysing data from its Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP).

"We looked at how many browser features they use, and it's not as many as you'd expect. They interact with the site much more than they use the browser," explained Moulster.

The analogy Moulster used is that of people going to see a play. They expect the theatre to be helpful to them – providing seating, lighting, and sound – but what they're coming to see is the play.

"In our analogy the browser is the theatre and the web is the play," said Microsoft's UK Web Product Manager Mark Quirk.

New features in the browser include the ability to "pin" a web site to the PC's taskbar, and to combine the address bar with the search engine query bar.

Quirk said pinning web sites makes them quicker to access.

On the security front, the most noticeable enhancement is a new download manager.

When users download content such as applications from untrusted sites, IE9 will scan the download for viruses, and inform the user as to how many times the content has been downloaded from the web site.

Options to delete the download or continue are then presented to the user.

Other features include an add-on performance adviser, which alerts users to add-ons that are causing the browser to load slower and suggests fixes.

The IE9 beta also has a new "hang recovery" feature that prevents user information being lost in the event of a browser instance crashing.

The latest NetMarketShare statistics show IE's global market share down a quarter of a per cent to 60.4. Mozilla's Firefox browser share is unchanged on 22.9 per cent, with Google Chrome up 0.4 per cent to 7.5 per cent.