In my last column, I mentioned that Microsoft is starting to be more aggressive getting Internet Explorer 9 into the market by including it in automatic upgrades to Windows. So it's a good time to talk about some of the features and changes that you'll see when it hits your desktop.
In general, the things you'll notice are new and changed features, some of which are there because they catch up to other browsers, such as Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera. Microsoft says IE 9 is faster and more secure than previous versions. Unless you compare on specific malware and Web pages, you'll never be able to tell; so we'll accept it.
Start by noticing that some Web pages will look a bit different. The thing you'll notice most is that the corners of some boxes will have round corners. These changes are because IE 9 uses Html 5, an improved way of writing Web pages than previous versions. It's always evolving; and some Web creators use the newer techniques before others do. So you won't see the differences on every website.
One of the features I really like is the ability to tear a tab off the browser to pin it to the taskbar. That's the area at the bottom of your Windows desktop that has chunky icons of your applications. This is handy because it allows you to get easy access to your favorite websites in new windows. Just click on the icon on your taskbar, and it will go straight to that website on the exact page you specify. You can do this with multiple websites, so they are all accessible with a single click.
You can also use this feature to create separate browser windows out of a single window with multiple tabs. While I generally like to have all my open Web pages in a single window, occasionally I like the multiple window setup because then I can use
Another particularly helpful enhancement is one you never want to use but unfortunately will probably need a lot anyway. Whenever a tab stopped performing in Internet Explorer 8, you'd have to shut down the entire browser to recover, and that meant closing all the other tabs you had open as well.
Taking a cue from Google's Chrome browser, Microsoft significantly enhanced IE 9, so when a tab stopped operating, only that tab would crash, leaving the others open for continued use. Then the browser can recover the page that was on that tab. This is a great change. Alone, it makes the upgrade to IE 9 valuable.
It's not all roses, though. The menu and tab configuration that you see by default is jarring when you first upgrade. It is sparse -- you see no menus, tabs are on the same row as the search field and your favorites bar is turned off.
But with a bit of digging, you can make it much more usable. Start by right-clicking on a blank space near the combined address/search field (another change to make it like Chrome), and you'll see the menu to customize the browser.
That star icon you see on the top right is your favorites pane. It's unintuitive in that it first opens on the right side of your screen, but when pinned open, it moves to the left side. Other than that, it works like the old one. I don't think IE 9 will convert many Firefox users, but it's a nice upgrade for IE users.
First Published: August 7, 2011, 4:00 a.m.
