IE9 beta designed to optimize GPU potential

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The new version of Internet explorer 9 (IE9) Beta announced by Microsoft Corporation has been designed to make optimal use of graphic processing unit along with enhanced speed for browsing.

“The objective is to make web more beautiful. The customer should be able to experience beauty of a website. With IE9 Beta we have tried to use more power of GPU unlike others who use CPU power for multimedia functions,” said Moorthy Uppaluri, GM, Developer Partner Evangelism, Microsoft India in an interaction with CIOL.

Also read: Exclusive Preview: Internet Explorer 9

Uppaluri claimed that other browsers will follow suite soon from IE9 beta. This version of IE9 beta has clubbed search function with address column and replaced search column that was found in other older versions. This feature is almost like function of address column of Chrome but Microsoft has differentiated IE 9 Beta function by adding privacy clause to it.

In the case of Chrome, any word typed on address bar is directed to Google only where as IE9 beta gives option to user of the search engine that they would like to use.

Also read: Internet Explorer 9.0 & Web Open Font Format

IE9 Beta comes with smart screen technology, which Uppaluri claims, makes IE9 Beta 85 per cent safer than other browsers.

“IE9 beta as on date has capability to filter 85 per cent of malware that exists. This is three time higher than that of capability of Firefox and five times to that of Chrome,” said Uppaluri.

While searching for download option of IE9 beta, the search engine may show multiple sites for download but it will be safe to download IE9 Beta from www.beautyoftheweb.com, the site developed by Mircosoft for IE9 Beta.

Also read: Windows XP not to support Internet Explorer 9

Through IE9 Beta, Microsoft has made attempt to make PC screen look more like a TV screen. It has cleaned most of the option that were present in various portion of Internet explorer and stacked them all at a corner. This browser, as already mentioned, does not have search column. Apart from this, command bar and favourite bar are hidden. The browser does not show any status bar at the bottom. The size and design of Tab for open pages had been crisp.



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IE9 beta will support all the web pages designed in HTML 5 and versions above.

IE9 beta user can pin sections of website on the browser and get to see alerts as the sections are updated. The pinned sections of websites look like a widget created on the browser.



Microsoft has partnered with 70 websites with whom it will collaborate and help them in optimizing their content for IE9 beta. These partners include known names like Indiatimes, NDTV, Rediff and other famous website which according to Microsoft have 75 per cent global Internet traffic moving on to them.

For partners, IE9Beta seems to have brought them opportunity for which they have been waiting.

“We are happy to be partnering with Microsoft on the launch of IE9, and we see this as a great opportunity to extend the best to our customers and their overall browsing experience. We have some exciting initiatives lined up in the Entertainment space and want to leverage this partnership to innovate using IE9 and its unique capabilities. Today with IE9, Indiatimes is lit up for Windows 7. Users get a native browsing experience with IE9 on Windows 7” said Rishi Khiani, CEO, Times Internet.

NDTV has plans to optimize features video and animation content of its website for IE9 Beta users.

“We have lots of multimedia content on our website. In other browsers, the video content or the multimedia slows down but with IE9 beta we have opportunity to offer good experience to our viewers. It is built to use power of GPU which will enable us to provide rich media content for visitors of our webiste,” said Kawaljit Singh Bedi, chief technology officer, NDTV Convergence.

Bedi mentioned that in next quarter, most of the sections on the NDTV website will be optimized to make full use of IE9 beta features.

However, IE9 Beta has limitations. Unlike other famous browsers like Chrome and Mozilla, IE9 Beta is only compatible with Windows Vista and Windows7.

“It will be available on all version of Windows launched after Windows Vista,” said Uppaluri.