Internet Explorer 9 developer preview released

[InsaneNutter]

The Internet Explorer 9 "test drive" (developer platform preview) is available at ietestdrive.com. The preview build will not include the UI elements of Internet Explorer 9 but will allow developers to test the new JavaScript engine and HTML5/CSS3 support.

IE 9 will take advantage of the power of the GPU for all page rendering and developers can exploit this using CSS, DHTML and javascript. A new JS engine (codenamed Chakra) will also be built into Internet Explorer 9 with greater interoperability and standards support all round. Features such as rounded corner CSS support will be built in.

Here is how various browsers peformed on the Flying Images test included with the IE9 developer preview.

IE9: 46fps
Firefox: 17fps
Chrome: 1fps
IE8: 1fps

That quick test was run on a Dual Core Intel Atom @ 2ghz with the Nvidia Ion (Basically a Geforce 9400) so chances are the results will be a lot better on high end hardware.

It does show that hardware acceleration appears to make a huge difference on lower end hardware.

 

[KillerWhiteMan]

Any idea if a test build will be released for us to try out if we can get our hands on it? I love IE8 and the IE9 seems to be even better.

 

[Slaz]

Hardware Acceleration is a proven method of speeding things up, and I'm glad that more different programs are starting to use it!