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March 30, 2011

Firefox 4 browser is a must have speedy update

I have been using the new Firefox 4 for the past week and have switched it as my default browser for all Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux machines. It has been fast and rock solid. The 3 reviews below from Mashable, PCWorld, and Techie-buzz below state that the next Chromium beta is still faster on java websites, but Firefox seems faster for general browsing. Firefox 4 also uses less memory than the old version and less than other browsers. In addition, I still prefer Firefox user name & password management.  Below are some screen shots using the MX3 theme and a download link for it.











Firefox also has tab previews view from the toolbar below.




 
Firefox 4 also has the new Panoramic view setting, showing tab groups.


You can download Mozilla Firefox 4 here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/fx/

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From Mashable.com ...
Mozilla’s Firefox 4 was released early Tuesday. The release comes nearly two years after Firefox 3.5 and three years after Firefox 3.
The web browsing landscape has changed significantly since then, with Google’s Chrome browser winning converts left and right, while mobile and tablet browsing gained new ground.
When Firefox first hit the scene in the early 2000s, Mozilla’s open-source browser was a refreshing change of pace for users and designers alike. It brought innovative features like tabbed browsing to the mainstream (although Opera did it first). It used add-ons to an extent that hadn’t been seen before.





Over the last few years, early adopters — once the core evangelists for the browser — shifted away from it. Those add-ons started to bog the program down. Meanwhile, the new layout engine of choice for web developers isn’t Gecko (which powers Firefox), but WebKit (which powers Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and the browsers for BlackBerry and Android).
Firefox 4 is an important release for Mozilla — perhaps the most important release since 1.0. The competition has never been so strong. We have been using the beta releases extensively and spent some time with the final release. So how does Firefox 4 stack up against the competition? Are the changes enough to keep current users from switching — and lure old users back?

Look and Feel


Mozilla first started talking about Firefox 4.0 in July 2009. The early screenshot previews — featuring tabs on top, a la Chrome — were a radical departure at the time.Although the comparisons to Chrome are unavoidable, I think that Firefox 4 improves upon Google’s minimalist design.
Tabs are on top, but the browser window is still easily draggable. Users won’t make the mistake of dragging a tab rather than the full window. Moreover, cycling through tabs is more elegant and less cluttered than either Safari 5 or Chrome 10.



By default, Mozilla has changed the location of the home button. It also added a new bookmark bar. Fortunately, these components can be customized and removed (simply right click on them and hit “customize”). Like Chrome, Firefox eschews the the status bar on the bottom of the screen, only using it as an overlay when needed. This adds a few more pixels of space to the viewing window.
Firefox 4 includes an innovative new tab grouping feature known as Panorama. Panorama started life as Tab Candy, an experimental feature introduced by former Mozilla Creative Lead Aza Raskin. It creates different groups of tabs and lets you switch easily between them. Panorama is a great feature for power users, but anyone who don’t want to use a grouping system can ignore it and never know the difference.

Speed


Firefox used to be the fastest browser on the block. Over the years, the program has become bloated. Increasingly, the speed factor in web browsers is less about the rendering engine and more about the JavaScript engine.Firefox 4 claims to be up to six times faster than its predecessor. In our tests, load times did seem about that fast — though Google Chrome 10 still seems to bring up pages more quickly.
The speed increases aren’t merely limited to page load times, however. Firefox 4 starts up significantly faster on my Mac (an iMac with a 2.8GHz i7 and 12GB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.6.7) than its predecessor. In fact, in a timed test, Firefox 4 launched from dock to default homepage at nearly the exact same speed as Google Chrome 10.

Performance, Memory Usage, Stability


As a full-time Mac user since 2007, I’ve long had a love/hate relationship with Firefox. Certain websites (particularly corporate backend systems) just work better in the browser than in Safari. But Firefox has never been particularly well tuned to Mac OS X machines. Firefox 3 was a significant improvement, but frankly, Firefox has remained a memory hog.The biggest problem with Firefox versions of the past — and this is true of both Mac OS X and Windows releases — is that the program has the tendency to leak memory. This problem only gets worse on systems with lots of add-ons installed and can be made worse still by plugins like Flash.

Mozilla has said that Firefox 4 consumes less memory and is more stable. I wanted to see if this was true. Using the Activity Monitor in Mac OS X, I tracked the amount of real memory, CPU utilization and CPU threads in Firefox 4, Firefox 3.6.15, Safari 5.0.4 and Chrome 10.0.6.448.151 stable.

I tried to install the same number of add-ons or extensions to each browser. The goal was to re-create the average browsing session. I then opened a number of memory-hogging tabs, including Farmville and Hulu with video playing.

I tested the memory and CPU usage for each browser. Remember, your mileage may vary.



First, the good news — in my tests, Firefox 4 consumes less memory and CPU cycles than Firefox 3.6.15. When adding in Flash and other plugin usage to the total memory footprint, only Google Chrome 10 performs better.
The bad news — and this is really for all four browser variants tested — is that the overall usage is still fairly high. The big culprit here is Adobe Flash. Improvements have been made on this front in Windows and with certain graphics chipsets on the Mac (my Radeon HD 4850 unfortunately, is not included), but Flash is the greatest cause of browser performance and memory usage issues.

So if Firefox 3.6.x takes up a lot of memory on your system, the improvements in Firefox 4 might not be significantly better.

What is new is that Firefox 4 now segregates its regular browsing processes from so-called plugin processes. Previously, Firefox was the sole item to appear in the Mac OS X Activity Monitor. With Firefox 4, a “Firefox Plugin Process” appears as well.
So if Flash wasn’t running a game and playing back a video, that Plugin Process usage would be considerably less. Rather than relying on the browser to free up the memory (something Firefox is historically bad at doing), the plugin process can simply be freed up.
Moreover, if a plugin crashes, the browser can recover without taking down the entire session. Apple is doing something similar in Safari 5.0.x, which shows Flash Player as its own process. If Flash crashes, the rest of the browser can stay intact.

With Chrome, Google goes a step further and actually separates each tab into its own process. That makes it easy to shut down one tab and keep the rest of the session running. Chrome doesn’t separate Flash as its own entity; the browser uses its own sandboxed version of Flash Player.

It’s great that Mozilla has decided to split up the way Firefox uses memory. Recovering from crashes is less time consuming, and regular system memory can be reclaimed more quickly.
Since Firefox 4 Beta 8, I have found the browser to be very usable with few stability issues. The few issues that remained up until the final release — notably Netflix not wanting to work well on the Mac — have been resolved in Firefox 4. In the 24 hours I have been testing Firefox 4, I haven’t had the browser seize or crash. It’s rare that I don’t have to invoke “force quit” for Firefox 3.6.15, so this is a great sign.

Add-ons


Mozilla has restructured how its add-on system works. Add-on installation and browsing now takes place in a designated browser window, rather than a pop-up menu. This is much more easy on the eyes and makes finding and installing or removing add-ons and browser themes more fluid.Most major Firefox add-ons now work with Firefox 4. Users may run into situations where an add-on is incompatible. But most developers seem to have answered the call. If your favorite add-on isn’t updated in the next week or two, it might be time to look for a replacement; it probably indicates developer abandonment.



Firefox is continuing to move towards lighter weight extensions like those for Google Chrome, Safari and Opera. These add-ons can be built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript and tend to use less memory and resources. They also tend to have less of an impact on overall browser performance and stability.

Still, at this stage, most major Firefox add-ons still use the traditional add-on API and require a browser restart when updated, installed or uninstalled.
I have long said that add-ons and extensions are Firefox’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The impact that the extensibility these add-ons added to the browser on overall user adoption cannot be understated. It’s equally true, however, that the performance impact some popular add-ons can have on the browser has hurt Firefox’s image as a whole.
Even with Chrome, users have to battle how many extensions are installed versus the performance impact on the browser. It’s a tough line to straddle between utility and performance. But from what I understand about the Firefox add-on APIs and toolkits, it is an area Mozilla has spent a lot of time working to make better.

Overall


So is Firefox 4 good enough to lure back old users and to keep existing users satisfied?For me, the answer is yes. While I don’t anticipate using Firefox as my primary browser (I tend to use Safari), keeping Firefox running on my computer is no longer something I fear.
The new user interface is fresh and inviting. Panorama is something I could see using on a regular basis, and the memory and performance improvements live up the expectations.
Firefox fanatics are going to love it. Developers that test in multiple browsers are going to be very pleased. Still, I don’t know if being on par with the competition is enough to bring old users back.
I’m going to continue to use Firefox 4 more over the next few weeks. For me, that’s an important development. Since Google Chrome officially came to the Mac in December of 2009, I have used Firefox primarily only to access certain websites behind a VPN. It’s great to actually enjoy using the old girl again.
Let us know your thoughts about Firefox 4 in the comments.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/03/23/firefox-4-review/
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From PCWorld.com

Firefox 4 Review Round-Up: The Critics Weigh In

Do critics think the latest version of Firefox can handle the competition from Chrome and IE9? Let's check out highlights of the reviews.

By Jared Newman

Mar 24, 2011 9:47 AM

Firefox 4 is finally here, and its reviews are rolling in. Mozilla's new browser is its slickest yet, and adds new features like Tab Groups and Do Not Track. But with the recent launches of Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome 10, do critics think the latest version of Firefox can handle the competition? Let's check out highlights of the reviews.

Tabs
Firefox 4 is loaded with features to help you manage tabs, the most impressive of which, according to Ars Technica's Ryan Paul, is "Tab Groups." This feature lets you group frequently used pages together by category, and then call them up at will. While most critics praised the feature, Paul found it impractical for everyday use. He writes:


"Although tab groups radically simplify tab management and significantly increase the scalability of tab interaction, the feature still has some fundamental failings that sabotage its usefulness. The single biggest weakness of tab groups is that you can't move them between windows ... The real deal-breaker for me, however, is the difficulty of finding misbehaving tabs ... In Chrome, I could have trivially solved the problem by cracking open the browser's built-in process manager and sorting by CPU usage."



Another new tab management feature is "Switch to Tab." When typing in a URL, this feature lets you jump to the website you're trying to reach if it's already open in another tab. Critics liked the idea but said it needs improvement. "Any search results that match open tabs get mixed in with your history list, previous searches and so on," Preston Gralla writes for Computerworld. "So it's difficult to see at a glance if your matches are in open tabs."



Add-Ons
Firefox 4 moves the add-on manager from a pop-up window to a browser tab. "This is much more easy on the eyes and makes finding and installing or removing add-ons and browser themes more fluid," Christina Warren writes for Mashable.


Warren says add-ons have been a blessing and a curse for Firefox, because while they've been largely responsible for the browser's popularity, they can also hurt performance and ding Firefox's reputation. Mozilla's trying to fix this by letting add-ons use lighter, more stable technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. "Still, at this stage, most major Firefox add-ons still use the traditional add-on API and require a browser restart when updated, installed or uninstalled," Warren writes.


Performance

Benchmarks, in my opinion, do a lousy job of conveying real-world experience, but a test on memory use from PC Pro seems worth repeating:

"Firefox is still disappointingly inefficient at handing back memory. With five tabs open the browser chomped through 104MB of RAM in our tests - significantly less than either IE9 or Chrome - yet yielded only about 35MB of that when we closed all but the Google homepage. Both Chrome and IE9 are much more effective at releasing RAM when tabs are closed, so if you use a lot of tabs you'll still find the need to close Firefox down every so often to start from scratch."


Still, most critics didn't have any glaring complaints with Firefox 4's performance, and said the browser easily beat its predecessor. "In hands-on experiences, one of the best performance differences between Firefox 3.6 and the current version is that Firefox 4 crashes far, far less," CNet's Seth Rosenblatt wrote.


Security

As Rosenblatt notes for CNet, Firefox 4 adds HTTP Strict Transport Security, which tells the browser to automatically create a secure connection when logging into a website. The new Content Security Policy is designed to block cross-site scripting attacks.

But the most publicized security feature is Do Not Track, which attempts to tell websites not to follow you around the Internet, thus preventing them from sharing your browsing habits with advertisers. "The problem is that websites don't have to honor this request, thus rendering the tracking protection feature useless," Nick Mediati writes for PCWorld. "Mozilla is working to make this feature an industry standard, so hopefully things will improve in time."


Verdict

The browser you choose is, of course, a matter of personal preference, but here's what the critics have concluded about Firefox 4:


"The new versions are done and dusted, and the bad news for Microsoft is that you still have to look beyond Internet Explorer if you want the best browsing experience. That leaves you with an enviable choice: Google Chrome if outright speed and performance are a priority, or Firefox 4 if a more fully featured browser is what's called for."
- Barry Collins, PC Pro


"For those who frequently keep many tabs open and want a way to tame them, it's clearly the best browser out there. But even aside from Panorama's capabilities, Firefox users and those who may have stayed away because of Firefox's cluttered interface will want to give it a try, because of its increased speed and clean interface -- and because Firefox still has the largest collection of add-ons of any browser."
- Preston Gralla, Computerworld


"Some people have probably abandoned the browser for the significant speed differences between version 3.6 and Google Chrome. However, the competition has forced Mozilla and others to put out better browsers in order to thrive. Firefox 4 is arguably the best browser on the market today."
- Seth Rosenblatt, CNet


"So is Firefox 4 good enough to lure back old users and to keep existing users satisfied? For me, the answer is yes. While I don't anticipate using Firefox as my primary browser (I tend to use Safari), keeping Firefox running on my computer is no longer something I fear."
- Christina Warren, Mashable.

Follow Jared on Facebook and Twitter for even more tech news and commentary.



From Techie-buzz.com...

Update: Some sections of this article have been modified from their original form
The Release Candidate for Firefox 4 has been out for a few days now and I decided to put it through the paces. Though there wouldn’t me much to write about since my Firefox 4 Beta review, there are definitely some speed tests and other things I have done to compare it with other offerings available today.

UI Changes

As I had mentioned in my beta review, the user interface for 4 is completely different from earlier versions. It is similar to what other browser look like including Internet Explorer 9, and .

Firefox 4 User Interface

This is definitely good because users will have a unified experience across multiple browsers. Firefox 4 has combined all the menu items into a single menu item. However, individual menu items are available when you press the Alt key.
Firefox 4 though hasn’t gotten rid of the search box and continues to use it for dedicated searches. However, you can still use the address bar to perform searches.

More New Features

Other than these, Firefox 4 also has a new tab manager which allows you to manage open tabs. A new add-on manager, a new feature where you can search the address bar and switch to an open tab and more integration. I had covered all of these in my earlier Firefox 4 review so I would not want to repeat them again.

Firefox 4 RC Benchmark – How it Stacks Up?

Coming to my favorite part in this review, I ran a couple of benchmarks on Firefox 4 RC to understand how it stacked up against the several other browsers I use. These benchmarks were run on a hot instance of all the included browsers (the browsers were already open once before running the tests).

benchmark_browsers

Sadly, the tests did not backup Firefox 4 here. Firefox 4 was rated the second lowest in the Peacemaker tests after Safari of course. Way below Internet Explorer 9. By the way that Safari 4.0.4 is actually Google Chrome 12, somehow it identifies it wrong. I have made sure to make it apparent in the test results image too.
The winner of course was Opera 11.10 which is still in alpha stage and Google Chrome 12 which will be released soon. It goes to show where Mozilla’s efforts are.

Firefox 4 Acid Tests

Firefox 3 RC fared worse in their Acid3 tests than the beta versions. This was not unexpected, but I have hardly seen any browser go higher that this.
Of course, Firefox 4 might have higher ratings elsewhere, but this is definitely not something I would want to see Firefox 4 in the ratings. Alas, we can’t get everything we want can we?

Summarizing

Firefox 4 is a huge leap for Mozilla, it makes a lot of UI changes which will be unacceptable to many users so you can expect a lot of backlash when this goes live However, it is a move in the right direction and will pay off in the end.
However, there are quite a few things which lack in Firefox 4 and were supposed to be in Firefox 3.5. Do feel free to talk about your thoughts out here, in fact I would be very appreciative if you could share your benchmarks of different browsers too.

Redundant Section

This part of the article is redundant and it might have been a bug in my profile, please disregard it. You can click here to see this section.

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March 18, 2011

Internet Explorer 9 Speeds Past the Competition

IE9 is a solid update in performance over IE8, but watch the compatibility issues. I use LogMeIn and it does not work correctly yet under IE9. Below are my own screen shots and a nice review from legend Preston Gralla.



 

The latest version of Microsoft's browser is fast, lean and means business.

By Preston Gralla,March 16, 2011 02:30 PM ET

Computerworld - Throw away what you think you know about Internet Explorer -- because the just-released IE9 will turn it all on its ear. Think IE is sluggish? Think again, because according to SunSpider tests, it rivals or beats the speed demons Chrome and Opera. Believe that IE sports a tired-looking interface? No longer --- it now has the same type of stripped-down look that Chrome originated, and that the latest version of Firefox uses as well.

IE9 (available only for Vista and Windows 7) also introduces other goodies, such as HTML5 support, Windows 7 integration, a double-duty address bar and more. It's clearly Microsoft's best shot at stopping the erosion of its market share by rivals Firefox and Chrome.

 

Moving to a clean interface

 

Microsoft takes a page from Google Chrome with its design for IE9 -- it's simple and clean, putting as much focus as possible on Web content and not on the browser itself.

Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 9 sports a simple, stripped-down interface.
All unneeded buttons and controls have been eliminated, and tabs are now at the top of the browser. (For a bit of simple eye candy, the top and the sides of IE9 are transparent.) The arrangement works. Web pages take center stage, with very little to distract you. There's not even a search box; as with Chrome, the address bar does double-duty as a search box.

Three small icons on the upper-right corner of the screen give you access to IE9's options: a Home button, a Favorites button for managing bookmarks, and a Tools button shaped like a gear. The Tools button leads you to most of the browser's other features and options, such as security, privacy, add-ons, customizing search and so on.


Internet Explorer 9

When you open a new tab in IE9, you get thumbnails of frequently visited pages.
There's another new feature to the IE9 interface as well. When you open a new tab, it displays thumbnails of pages you frequently visit. Rival browsers have done this for some time, but IE9 adds a new twist: At the bottom of each thumbnail is a bar that shows how frequently you visit each page. The longer the bar, the more you've visited the page. And there are some very useful other things you can do from this page as well, including reopening your last browsing session, reopening tabs you've closed during the browsing session, and getting recommendations for sites you might want to visit, based on the sites you frequently visit. You can also launch an anonymous browsing session, which IE terms "InPrivate Browsing."

 

IE9: The new speed demon?

Among the loudest complaints against previous versions of Internet Explorer was its lack of speed. In a world in which graphics-heavy Web pages get heavier every year, videos are becoming normal elements and Web-based apps are replacing desktop-based applications, this sluggishness could have become a fatal flaw.
Microsoft was clearly cognizant of that when it went to the drawing board for Internet Explorer 9. Its new JavaScript engine, called Chakra, uses multiple processor cores to do its work, and compiles scripts in the background on one of those cores. IE9 also uses the computer's GPU to accelerate text and graphics rendering, especially HTML5 graphics.

I ran tests on IE9 and competing browsers using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark. I used a Dell Dimension 9200 with a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad processor and 2GB of RAM running Windows Vista. I ran three sets of tests on each browser and averaged the results.
IE9 beat all the others. It took an average 280 milliseconds (ms) to complete the tests, followed by Opera 11.01 at 308.8 ms, Chrome 10.0.648 at 316.7 ms, Firefox 4 Release Candidate at 319.1 ms and Safari 5.0.4 at 410.2 ms.
As a practical matter, there's not much difference in these tests between the top four performers. It's not going to be noticeable by most surfers. But in previous tests I ran, Internet Explorer 8 took between five and six times the amount of time to complete the SunSpider tests as its next-slowest rival, Firefox, making this an astonishing speed improvement. And the fact remains: On this test, Internet Explorer beat all rivals.

Internet Explorer 9
When IE9 and competing browsers were run using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, IE9 proved to be the fastest. (Lower numbers are better.)
It's an open question, though, as to whether Internet Explorer's hardware-accelerated GPU handling of processing-intensive work is superior to other browsers. The upcoming Firefox 4 also uses hardware acceleration, and Microsoft and Firefox have been trading fire over which browser is superior in that respect. We'll have to wait until a set of agreed-upon benchmarks emerge for measuring that capability before judging.

Keeping up with standard

Past versions of Internet Explorer have been criticized for not adhering to Web standards, something that Microsoft has fixed in Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft now has an Internet Explorer Test Drive page to demonstrate embedded video and other features. However, the
As a practical matter, this is moot at this point, because you'll have to search long and hard to find Web pages that use the
To test overall HTML5 compatibility, I ran IE9 and other browsers through the HTML5 test page. IE9 scored at the bottom, with 130 out of 400, while Firefox 4 Release Candidate scored 240, Opera scored a 234, Chrome rated 288, and Safari came in at 228. Of course, given how little HTML5 is used at this point, it's not clear how relevant these numbers are at the moment. But Microsoft needs to do some work to prepare Internet Explorer for HTML5 when it becomes widely used. At this point, IE is the least compliant browser, at least according to the HTML test page.

IE9 came close to acing the Acid 3 Test, which tests the degree to which a browser follows a number of Web standards, especially JavaScript and the Document Object Model (DOM). IE9 scored a 95 on the Acid Test and rendered the page perfectly except for a minor error, getting one color wrong. This is a dramatic improvement over IE8, which in my tests had scored only a 20. Chrome scored a 100, and while it didn't render the page properly on one of my machines, did a perfect job on several others. Firefox 4 Release Candidate scored a 97 and, as with Internet Explorer 9, rendered the page perfectly except for a minor error, getting one color wrong. Opera and Safari both scored a perfect 100 and rendered the page perfectly.

As for normal Web browsing, IE9 displayed nearly every page I visited properly, with a few exceptions. On my iGoogle home page, it would not render the Web-based version of Google Talk. And on the Computerworld blogs, it didn't show any of the comments that readers made. I was able to solve the problem with Computerworld's blogs by clicking on IE9's Compatibility View button, which displays the page as thought it were being rendered by Internet Explorer 8. In subsequent visits to that page, IE9 remembered to display it using the earlier version of the browser. However, Compatibility View didn't solve the problem with rendering Google Talk.

A better address bar

With IE9, the address bar now does double-duty as both an address bar and a search box. (To highlight this capability, Microsoft refers to it as One Box.) As you type your search, the browser looks at your History, Favorites and Feeds, and displays matches. In that way, you can more quickly find a site or do a search by selecting a choice and pressing Enter. You can, of course, also type in your entire search term and press Enter to search the Web using your default search engine.
(On my Vista test machines, the address bar didn't launch searches when I typed in text. To fix the problem, I clicked the tools icon in the upper-right part of the screen and selected Internet Options --> General, clicked Settings in the Search section, checked the box next to "Search in the address bar," then clicked OK. On my other test machine, I didn't need to do this; however, this may have been an anomaly.)

You can also have your keystrokes sent to your search provider (such as Bing or Google), so that the provider can see what you're typing and suggest possible matches. IE9 turns that behavior off by default for privacy reasons, but you can turn it back on if you want.

Internet Explorer 9
Internet Explorer 9's address bar does double-duty as a search box.
IE9 lets you easily route your searches to other search providers rather than your default one. As you type in a search term, icons of other search providers appear underneath the list of matches. Simply click any icon to launch the search using that provider. That's all well and good. But when you do this, you're actually changing your default search provider to the alternate provider. So even if you only want to search Wikipedia once for a particular search, choosing its icon means that all subsequent searches will be done through Wikipedia as well, until you change it back -- a feature that can be very troublesome.

Making friends with Windows 7

Microsoft has tweaked IE9 for Windows 7, giving the browser some capabilities not available when it runs in Windows Vista. The most noticeable is that you can pin a Web site to the taskbar by dragging its URL to the taskbar. The site's icon then appears in the taskbar; to visit the site, click the icon. When you get to the site this way, the site will essentially "brand" IE9 -- the forward and back buttons will use the colors of the pinned site, and the Web site's icon will appear in the upper left of the browser. IE9 does this on its own; no development on the part of the site owner is required.

Web developers can use the Windows 7 Jump List to add site navigation and additional features (such as music controls) to the pinned icon.
These features, while potentially very useful, may not turn out to be as helpful in actual practice. Adding features to the Jump List requires programming on the part of the site owner. In the past, Microsoft has added special features such as Web Slices that required site owners to do development work in order to take advantage of them -- and they rarely did so. Given that even Microsoft.com hasn't done any programming to take advantage of Jump Lists, it's not clear that this will become widely used.

Pinning a site can also prove to be somewhat annoying, because when you launch a site in this way, it launches in its own browser, and not as a tab in an already open browser. That means each pinned site will run in its own browser instance, making it confusing to switch among them.

IE9 also uses another Windows 7 feature, Windows Snap. Tear away a tab away from IE9 and drag it to the side of the screen, and it resizes the tab and places it in its own window, to fill half the screen.

Performance Advisor and Notification Bar

Browser add-ons can slow a browser's performance, and IE9 includes a nifty tool called the Performance Advisor to help you track down ones that might be particularly problematic. When you launch IE9, the Performance Advisor looks to see whether any add-ons might slow down the browser and then opens the Notification Bar at the bottom of the screen.

Internet Explorer 9
IE9's Performance Manager lets you turn off add-ons that may prove a drag on the browser's performance.
If you click "Disable add-ons," you'll see a screen that shows name of the add-ons, their manufacturers and an estimate of how much extra time they each take when you're launching your browser, opening a new tab or navigating to a Web site. Even Microsoft's own add-ons are included. You then have the option of disabling any to speed up browsing. This is a great tool for letting you decide whether the capabilities of an add-on are worth the browsing delay it exacts.

The Notification Bar offers other info as well. It tells you, for example, if you're visiting a Web page that includes both secure and nonsecure content, such as an online store that uses an HTTPS/SSL secure connection, but also displays ads, images or scripts from a non-HTTPS server. At that point, the Notification Bar warns you that IE9 is displaying only secure content and gives you the option of displaying both types of content by clicking the "Show all content" button. This is useful but potentially annoying, because this notification appears every time you visit the Web site; you have to click the button each time.
Internet Explorer 9
The Notification Bar pops up relevant warnings and notifications.

Improved security and a download manager

IE9 also includes a variety of security improvements. One of the most important is to the SmartScreen Filter, which is designed to protect you from visiting phishing sites, and whose capabilities have been expanded to protect against malicious downloads.
When you download a file in IE9, the SmartScreen Filter uses a new "download reputation" feature to examine the file's reputation -- how many other people have downloaded the file, and if they have found it to be safe or malicious. If the SmartScreen Filter determines it's safe, you simply download the file. But if the file has a malicious reputation, or if very few people have downloaded it so that it has no reputation to check, you're warned. You can then decide whether to download.
This feature won't replace your existing anti-malware program. It's designed for protection against malicious files so new that anti-malware software may not have had a chance to flag them as malicious. Some anti-malware software has begun to use similar technology to this, but still, it's nice to have this built into IE9 -- multiple means of protection are always a good idea.
IE9 includes a well-designed Download Manager that tracks all of your downloaded files and lets you search through them. In addition to the download reputation feature, the manager will warn you when it detects that you're downloading a file from a malicious Web site.

What's missing

Internet Explorer still trails Firefox and Chrome in one area: add-ons. Both those browsers have thriving ecosystems of third-party developers writing add-ons; Internet Explorer doesn't.
Through the years, Microsoft has tried to get around this by creating technologies that Web sites and others can easily plug into, such as the aforementioned Web Slices and Accelerators, as a way to send information from another Web site directly to your current browser page.
Despite Microsoft prodding and promotion, neither of those technologies ever took off. At this point, there doesn't seem to be a way for Microsoft to build that same ecosystem. If you're a fan of plug-ins and add-ons, you likely won't be a fan of Internet Explorer.
Another issue is that Microsoft has no plans to develop IE versions for mobile platforms other than Windows Phone 7. This may put it at a disadvantage in a mobile future when people want to sync browser information among their computers and mobile devices.

The bottom line

If you've stopped using Internet Explorer because of speed problems or a tired-looking interface, you should give IE9 a try (assuming you use Windows 7 or Vista, of course). You'll be surprised by its dramatic speed improvements and slicker interface. Improved adherence to Web standards is a plus as well, as are new features such as a double-duty address bar and the Performance Advisor. Existing IE users will want to upgrade right away -- it's hard to argue against a faster, cleaner-looking browser with a host of other nice extras.

Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld.com and the author of more than 35 books, including How the Internet Works (Que, 2006).

 Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214674/Internet_Explorer_9_speeds_past_the_competition?taxonomyId=167&pageNumber=1

March 15, 2011

IE9 Released today

E9 to be released today
Microsoft is preparing to launch the final version of Internet Explorer 9 today at 9PM Pacific Time. This guide gives you all the information that you need to be prepared for the launch.

Internet Explorer 9 will be released for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 and the server products Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The minimum system requirements are 512 Megabytes of RAM, a computer with a 1 Gigahertz processor and 70 to 200 Megabytes of hard drive space depending on the version used.




The 32-bit client operating systems require 70 Megabytes, the 64-bit systems 120 Megabytes. Those are the minimum system requirements, Internet Explorer 9 will run better on faster systems with more cpu cores and computer memory.

Internet Explorer 9 downloads become available on this website. You can change the version and language if necessary.





Please note that IE9 will replace previous installations of the Internet Explorer browser on the system. (Check out How To Uninstall Windows Internet Explorer 9 if you want to remove IE9 from the system at a later point in time)

Windows users who want to upgrade to Internet Explorer 9 should update the operating system via Windows Update, and the graphics card to make sure the system is best prepared for the browser.
Lets take a look at some of the core improvements over previous Internet Explorer versions.

Most noticeable is probably the improved performance of the web browser. Web pages load faster which can be attributed to improved rendering engines. The speed gain is noticeable when loading websites, playing games or other media in the browser. Microsoft has added full hardware acceleration to IE9 which improves rendering of advanced graphics and effects. While it may or may not be the fastest browser, it is a fact that Microsoft has pushed the limits and has moved the performance of Internet Explorer 9 near that of other fast web browsers.

Microsoft has changed the design of the browser which uses less space at the top. Tabs have been moved next to the address bar by default, with options to move them to their own bar below the address bar if needed.





New security and privacy related features have been added to the Internet browser. Tracking Protection can be used to block tracking cookies and advertisements by loading third party lists or creating custom lists. ActiveX Filtering prevents the execution of specific scripts or functions on a website. Both new features are accessible via Tools > Safety in the menu. (check out Internet Explorer 9 ActiveX Filtering: Fix Flash, Java And Other Plugins if you cannot play Flash videos and games if you have enabled ActiveX Filtering in the browser, and Internet Explorer Tracking Protection Lists, Check Before Installing to evaluate protection lists before you install them)






Additional new features include an improved download manager, the ability to pin websites to the Windows 7 Taskbar, enhanced tabs, a new blank tab page, the notification bar that alerts the user, search that has been moved to the address bar and the add-on performance advisor. A full list of what’s new features is available at the official Internet Explorer 9 website. I’d also recommend you check out the release notes which list compatibility issues and other issues.

Internet Explorer 9 has a few usability issues. The menu bar is not shown by default, and it is only possible to display it by pressing the Alt key. There is however no direct option to enable it permanently. Users who want to do that need to add an entry to the Windows Registry.
Open the Registry with Windows-r, type regedit, and hit enter.

Navigate to the key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet ExplorerSome users may need to create the key Internet Explorer. This is done with a right-click on Microsoft and the selection of New > Key.
Right-click Internet Explorer, select New > Key and name it Main. Right-click Main afterwards, select New > Dword (32-bit) Value. Enter AlwaysShowMenus and press return. Double-click the new key and set it to 1 in the prompt.

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Restart Internet Explorer 9 and press Alt once. The menu bar is shown and it will be permanently available from that moment on. While we are at it. If you would like to see the menu bar above all user interface elements but the title do the following:


Switch to Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser Right-click Webbrowser and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value. Enter ITBar7Position and double-click the new entry. Enter 1 as the value and click ok. [Image]

The final Registry tweak increases the concurrent connections of Internet Explorer 9 which can speed up the website access noticeably.


Go to the key
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\Look for the subkey


FEATURE_MAXCONNECTIONSPER1_0SERVERdouble-click the value explorer.exe and set it to a. This sets the number of simultenous downloads of Internet Explorer to 10.


You may need to create the keys if they do not exist.
Internet Explorer 9 DownloadsThe article will be updated once the downloads become available.
Should you update?Vista and Windows 7 users should generally update their version of Internet Explorer to Internet Explorer 9. The browser has improved in security, privacy and speed. Even if IE is not the default browser, it may be beneficial since several third party products make use of the rendering engine.
Some users, those who run apps specifically designed for a previous IE version may want to run tests before they upgrade the browser. These users should download the IE9 Blocker Toolkit to prevent the installation via Windows Update.

Update: Microsoft has published a Windows Internet Explorer 9 Fact Sheet. Two pages that detail some of the improvements and new experiences.

Source: 
http://www.ghacks.net/2011/03/14/internet-explorer-9-launch-all-the-information-you-need/

Here is the text from the white paper from Microsoft noted above:


Windows Internet Explorer 9 Fact SheetMarch 2011 What’s New in Windows Internet Explorer 9?Customers upgrading from Internet Explorer 8 will notice performance improvements, a safer experience that puts the focus on their favorite websites and tweaks to the user interface — changes that help make your websites shine.


There are three core pillars that represent how we reimagined the role of the browser with Internet Explorer 9 to deliver an experience that makes your Web feel as native as the applications running on your PC:Fast.Internet 


Explorer 9 is all-around fast. Part of reimagining the role of the browser to deliver immersive, compelling Web experiences is rethinking the concept of fast. Today, fast is too often narrowly defined as page load time. Tomorrow, a browser will not be able to call itself fast unless it lets people interact with graphically rich sites and applications with lightning speed. Fully hardware-accelerated graphics, text, video and audio through Windows 7 means that the same markup not only works across the Web, but also runs faster and delivers a richer experience. Designed to take full advantage of the power of your computer’s hardware through Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9 delivers dynamic experiences that are as fast and responsive as native applications installed on your computer. Clean. Internet 


Explorer 9 puts the focus on the websites you love, with a clean experience for your Web that meets you where you are. With Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7, we rethought the role of the browser and how people interact with websites and Web applications. While other browsers focus on the browser itself, Internet Explorer 9 is site-centric, as opposed to browser-centric. You have the websites you love with a clean look that makes your websites shine. Trusted.


Internet Explorer 9 helps people feel confident and in control. The more that the Web becomes part of our everyday lives, the more complex the issues of online trust and browser trust become. When done correctly, creating a trustworthy browser helps customers feel connected to the Web, not distracted by concerns about reliability, privacy or safety. Internet Explorer 9 is a trusted way to access the Web because it has a robust set of built-in security, privacy and reliability technologies that can help keep you safer and your browsing experience virtually uninterrupted. Enjoy an All-Around Fast Experience With Windows Internet Explorer 9


Designed to take full advantage of your Windows-based computer's hardware, Internet Explorer 9 enables developers to build graphically rich and immersive Web experiences that are as fast and responsive as applications installed on your computer, making for a better consumer experience. These new features make the Web all-around fast with Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7.Full hardware acceleration. Hardware-accelerated text, video and graphics mean that your websites perform like applications installed directly on your Windows-based computer. New JavaScript engine. Chakra, the recently optimized JavaScript engine, interprets, compiles and executes code in parallel by taking advantage of multiple CPU cores. Clean Site-Centric Design Makes Sites Shine and Integrates With Windows 7


With a clean look and an increased viewing area, Internet Explorer 9 puts the focus on the things you love and makes your websites shine. Your favorite sites are taken out of the browser box, with seamless Windows 7 integration. Clean browser user interface. In Internet Explorer 9, the simplified user interface and site-centric user experience put the focus on the content of each website. This means less screen real estate is taken up by the browser, letting people browse and experience more of what websites have to offer. Pinned Sites. With Pinned Sites, your favorite websites can be accessed directly from the Windows 7 Taskbar without having to first open the browser. 


You can pin sites to the Taskbar by dragging the tab or the icon to the left of the URL on the Taskbar, then easily find and launch those sites you access most often — just like native applications on the PC. When a pinned site is launched from the Taskbar, the browser frame and navigation controls integrate the site’s icon and primary color, emphasizing the site and providing an even more site-focused experience. 


JumpList. With JumpList, you have a quick and easy way to get to a common website task without having to launch the browser first. For Pinned Sites where developers have created JumpList capabilities, you can quickly create a new e-mail message, check your inbox, change your music station, accept a friend invitation or see breaking news. Windows Aero Snap. You often need to use more than one website or page to accomplish a task. 


In Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft has reduced the frame, giving more room than competitors to let your sites shine. In addition, tearing off a tab by dragging it away from the browser, and using Windows Aero Snap to position the content, is a great way to show two sites or pages side by side. One Box. One Box gives people a single place to start, whether they want to navigate to a specific site or search for a site. One Box in Internet Explorer 9 incorporates search functionality into the Address Bar. 


With One Box, you can navigate to a site, search for a site, switch between search providers, or access browsing history, Favorites or suggestions from search providers. One Box Top Result. Another feature that speeds browsing is One Box Top Result. One Box Top Result helps you remember the Web address for common websites by taking you directly to the top results of your search provider without first displaying the search results page. Feel the Confidence and Trust That You Are in Control With Windows Internet Explorer 9


Internet Explorer 9 is a trusted way to surf the Web because it has a robust set of built-in security, privacy and reliability technologies that help keep you safer and your browsing experience virtually uninterrupted. These new features help provide the trust you need to feel safer online.Tracking Protection. Some content on websites can be used to track your activity as you browse the Web. Tracking Protection allows you to limit the browser's communication with certain websites — determined by a Tracking Protection List — to help keep your information private. Anyone can create Tracking Protection Lists, and some are available today. 


ActiveX Filtering. ActiveX is a technology that allows Web developers to create interactive content on their sites, but it also can pose a security risk. Internet Explorer 9 allows you to block ActiveX Controls for all sites and, with the new ActiveX Filtering option, turn them back on for only the sites that you trust. Hang recovery. In Internet Explorer 9, this feature isolates the impact of a hung tab to the individual tab, so that other tabs and the overall browser continue to operate. When a website hangs because of a long-running script or other operation, it causes your browser to become nonresponsive. Hang recovery in Internet Explorer 9 means you can continue browsing on other tabs. This new feature complements tab isolation and automatic crash recovery, which also helps keep you browsing and prevents loss of information. 


Compatibility View. You can feel good knowing that your favorite websites will run in the newest version of Internet Explorer. If Internet Explorer 9 detects a website that has not specified its desired display mode, the Compatibility View button appears next to the Refresh button on the Address Bar. Pressing the Compatibility View button causes Internet Explorer 9 to switch to a legacy document mode. The state of the button is saved for that Web page, so there is no need to press it again when you return to the same page at a later time. Automatic updates. Getting the latest browser updates helps keep you protected over time. You can choose to have important updates installed automatically, once they are made available. Automatically installed updates can include security updates, critical updates, definition updates, update rollups and service packs through Windows Update. 


Group Policy support. For IT professionals, Internet Explorer 9 continues to provide excellent Group Policy support. With nearly 1,500 Group Policy settings, including new settings to support Windows Internet Explorer 9 features, IT professionals have the control they need to manage Internet Explorer installations after deployment. Write 


Interoperable Markup With HTML5 and Windows Internet Explorer 9Extensive support for HTML5, Scalable Vector Graphics, Cascading Style Sheets Level 3, ECMAScript 5 and DOM provides a new set of capabilities that will help enable developers to write one set of markup language and know that it will work and look the same in all modern browsers. Internet Explorer 9 was designed with support for industry standards built in to help ensure that the same markup language works the same across browsers.


For more information, press only:Rapid Response Team, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide: (503) 443-7070, rrt@waggeneredstrom.com 
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