As of 21:00 PST (9:00pm PST), Internet Explorer 9 is now available for you to download and enjoy.
Over the last year, Microsoft has been releasing previews of some of the features destined for its next browser release, Internet Explorer 9. In September 2010 Microsoft then released a fully usable beta followed in February 2011 by a near-final “Release Candidate”.
Tonight’s release of IE9 marks Microsoft’s return as a true competitor in the browser marketplace – something that many thought would never happen. And not only has Microsoft released a truly competitive browser, but they’ve actually leapfrogged Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Opera’s browsers.
IE9 is faster than Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera in many benchmarks, and in the benchmarks it doesn’t win hands-down, it is within spitting distance of its competitors. There are many tests and examples on the IE9 Test Drive site that you can view with any browser and compare with IE9.
Here’s one example of how Chrome’s text rendering engine performs …
… compared to IE9:
In this test, IE9 outperformed chrome by 3.5x!
IE9 has surprised many by supports an ever broader set of the slowly maturing technologies currently working their way through the HTML5 standardization process. In many cases, IE9 offers better support for these standards than Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari!
Of course, these standards are still baking and it’s going to be several years until we see them all fully-ratified, but Microsoft is deeply committed to providing first-class support for standards as they near completion.
IE9 also includes some important features to help you protect your privacy and identity from malicious 3rd parties who might otherwise attempt to track your visits across a large number of websites.
Make no mistake. IE9 is a fabulous new browser. It’s lightning fast and solid as a rock. It’s much more streamlined and subtle than previous releases of IE helping you focus on your web browsing/surfing experience.
Go download a copy now to enjoy the web as never before!