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Microsoft predicts new gains for IE9 in October


ShyWriter

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Microsoft predicts new gains for IE9 in October

John Callaham

19 hours ago

Microsoft has decided not to wait until the end of the month to do a little bragging about the growth of its Internet Explorer 9 web browser on Windows 7 PCs. The company updated the official IE blog earlier today with the prediction that "as early as next month, IE9 on Windows 7 could be the leading modern browser behind IE8."

Microsoft is getting its info from NetMarketShare.com, which tracks the use of web browsers, among other things, around the world. According to Microsoft's spin of the numbers, IE9 continues to gain ground on Windows 7-based PCs compared to its biggest rivals, Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome, both worldwide as well as here in the US.

Microsoft has been pushing for users to dump older versions of its older Internet Explorer browser for two big reasons; one is that older browsers tend to be less secure than the newer versions. The other is that the smaller the market for older browsers, the more that web designers can put in more advanced features on their web sites that support the more advanced browsers.

Considering that there are a ton of web browsers for PC users to download, the fact that IE9 is apparently being used more and more by Windows 7 users is interesting. Of course there are still a lot of older PCs that run older operating systems, particularly Windows XP, and it may be a little while longer before that situation changes.

Image via Microsoft

Source: http://www.neowin.ne...-ie9-in-october

--END

Shy

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I was quite impressed with IE9. However, I find that using compatibility mode is annoying. Also I use G-Mail and it has issued in ie9, especially in compatability mode (which is odd) so I use Chrome 100% of the time. Perhaps IE10 will be flawless, but as for IE9...I think Chrome has it beat.

Do not suggest Firefox either lol. I think FF is a joke :ph34r: mainly because it feels like a rip off of IE. Chrome is smooth and sexy for the most part, but FF is a little dated now I think (with the big tabs and whatnot. I mean, even IE9 has slimmed down a bit...). While performance reports indicate that all 3 browsers test similarly, it comes down to what you like. I truly never thought I would switch from IE, but then Chrome came along--that's what happens in browser wars...people's allegiances change, old powers fall and new ones rise.

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I hope that M$ has a back up option, because whatever gains that the corporation gets in IE9 will be overshadowed by other things. In particular, the next version of Windows (w/IE 10). I have it running in VBox on three installs, so far, OK. Plenty of room for improvement, but it's not even at beta stage yet, so I'll leave it at that. Come spring 2012, we'll know plenty more.

As to this topic, there's nothing really special about IE9. Of course, it gives you back the screen space that the overkill in IE8 took away, sure it looks better, as most of the computers that's using IE9 is less than 3 years old, more likely 2 years. Windows 7 sold a lot of PC's, as evidenced by the continued falling of XP (less than 50% usage now). And once coveted XP business computers that sold on eBay & similar sites in 2009 for $400-$600, now are going for less than half of those prices. Much less.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

WOW!! Those numbers really surprised me! I knew that XP had fallen, but didn't realize that 7 had caught up that close. And with Win 7 SP1 released, IE9 is automatically included in new computers & sales of Win 7 OS install discs, although there are still plenty of Win 7 install discs w/o SP1. So really, IE9 cannot help but to sell itself, voluntarily or not.

As for myself, IE lost another user when IE8 was released in the spring of '09. Really designed for Vista/Win 7 Beta (at that time), it performed poorly on XP Pro. Pages no longer rendered properly, the browser seemed "heavy", like Vista. XP would have been better served by leaving IE7, and offering IE8 as a optional update, not an automatic one. I switched to what was Firefox 3.5RC at that time, and was quite surprised at the speed of the browser. For a year and a half, I used Firefox for most everything. Then the talk of another browser, Google Chrome, was the talk of the net. Speed, speed, speed, was what we continued to hear. I tried resisting, but one day (again), the latest FF was crashing. FF was moving ahead too fast for it's own good.

I downloaded the latest version of Chrome from File Hippo, installed it, & never looked back. Chrome beats FF, Opera, Safari & most notably, IE9, hands down. Without compromising security, nor leaving tons of tracking cookies all over the place (another IE9 negative, along with no native spellchecker). Plus, Chrome has it's own PDF reader (how about that?).

To put it short, if IE9 does make notable gains in October, it'll be because it was force fed on new computer/OS buyers. Not because it has more features. Some OEM's, like HP, has recently began to deeply discount their computer pricing, making it (seemingly) more attractive to buy a computer now. Once the novelty of their purchase wears off, many of these customers will see that they should have paid even less for what amounts to cheap recycled plastic, most with low end (a few mid range) dual core CPU's, with 4GB RAM crammed in. One can simply take a look at the Task Manager to see the CPU pegged at 100% under load, while the RAM usage is much less. Not to mention the heat it's producing.

As for IE, plan to look forward to 10. There's nothing new about IE9 any longer. Chrome has IE9 beaten by a long mile.

Cat

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