Look forward to testing it. This must be the longest testing period for a version of IE, MS have done.

This should prove interesting. If the reception is positive, it could prove to be another turnaround for Microsoft, much like the turnaround from Vista to 7 (at least in terms of press and perception).

I always hated Internet Explorer from the day i got my first PC. I even remember hating Internet Explorer when I was 7 years old :P (am 16 now). The speed is nowhere near comparable to Firefox, or any other browser for that matter. It takes like 15 seconds to load my homepage, while Chrome takes 2 seconds.

Here is what I think are the best browsers in terms of speed

Chrome>Firefox>Opera>Safari>Internet Explorer

This is in terms of overall browser functions, and user-friendliness

Firefox>Opera>Chrome>Internet Explorer>Safari

15 seconds? Wow, even on my piece of crap Pentium 4, it only takes about 2 seconds to load my homepage in Internet Explorer. Opera is just as fast. Firefox on the other hand takes half a century. Personally though, I've never really found enough wrong with IE to change to another browser full time.

However, keeping on the IE 9 topic, the platform previews so far have proven to be far faster at loading script than IE 8 and have quickly caught up to the speed champs of today; here's hoping the beta gets even faster.

Darician said:

15 seconds? Wow, even on my piece of crap Pentium 4, it only takes about 2 seconds to load my homepage in Internet Explorer. Opera is just as fast. Firefox on the other hand takes half a century. Personally though, I've never really found enough wrong with IE to change to another browser full time.

However, keeping on the IE 9 topic, the platform previews so far have proven to be far faster at loading script than IE 8 and have quickly caught up to the speed champs of today; here's hoping the beta gets even faster.

Maybe 15 seconds was a bit exaggerated, but it still takes a good 10 seconds to load Windows 7 on every single PC I currently have in my house. And if you install the Firefox speed up Add-On, Firefox will be blazing fast.