Microsoft finally launched the latest version of their renown browser, Internet Explorer 9 (only beta, at the moment) at the Beauty of the Web event. IE 9, although still the top internet browser in terms of users, has been slowly losing ground in the past years in front of its competitors, Chrome and Mozilla. But you can only download IE 9 if you use Windows Vista or 07.

Firstly, you’ll be surprised at how the new IE looks. It’s more polished and its interface is really good, with a more minimalistic monochrome look, that goes really well with Windows 7. However, Microsoft also made some weird choices, such as the placement of the address bar; it reduces the space available for tabs, which was already insufficient, and sometimes you even can’t see the whole URL.

IE 9 beta curiously misuses about a third of tab space with the address bar. Tab overflow is fortunately possible with IE 9. Microsoft also introduced the tab page, just like the one from Opera or Chrome. It is a page which shows the most visited sites and includes a usage indicator . If one tab should crash, it will be the only one to do so, not the entire browser. IE 9 also features a download manager.

Another oddity, this time rendering-related, is the way fonts appear on some sites. They seem pixelated, probably because of the new feature of font-rendering, which is hardware-accelerated.

Overall,Internet Explorer 9 can be considered an improvement, although it has some strange elements. If you like Chrome or Mozilla, you’ll probably remain loyal to IE’s competitors, but those of you with no clear preferences will probably like this new addition to the IE suite. If you decide you want to try it, download it from Microsoft IE’s official website:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/download/ie-9/worldwide