Microsoft Releases Platform Preview of IE9

Microsoft released platform preview version of IE9 today and can be downloaded from here. According to Microsoft,  Platform preview version is not a full browser, its intended mainly for web developers  to give a sneak preview on upcoming web platform technologies coming in the next version of the browser. For more FAQ's please visit the IE9 site here.

It also supports side-by-side installation along with IE8, but nothing is mentioned about the side-by-side installation with IE9 beta. So its up to the users  to decide on the installation....

Internet Explorer 9 Beta - First Impressions

The much anticipated release of the IE 9 beta is out and didn't waste much time in installing it. The first thing caught my attention was the interface. Less congested design with less icons and more screen real estate.

Layout & Interface

 

IE 9 brings significant changes to its layout, the address bar, icons and the tabs now appear in a single row which there by increases the area for the content. Also Reload, Stop, Compatibility buttons appears next to the address bar and the Home, Favorite and Settings button now appear to the right of the screen. These icons are gray in color by default and changes the color when we hover mouse over them. The status bar is turned off by default and I found it bit annoying coz most of the users want to see the progress bar during the loading of a page. 

Another one catches the user attention will be the absence of the address box. This explains why they integrated Bing right into the address bar, so it works either as an address bar or a search bar and Microsoft termed it as "Private OneBox".