Latest Internet Explorer 9 Release

Not exactly - IE is still broken, and lots of OS components share the IE binaries to do their work. It's not thinking too hard when IE is involved, given how intertwined it is within the whole OS - if IE is still broken, you still have a problem.

I really thought I would like IE9 better....but I seems to have some bugs....enough that I am thinking of switching to IE8

Thomas R said:

But one thing was bugging me so much that I switched on my main computer back to IE8:

The location of the Tabs!

All the way up right under the address bar with no way to change that position.

I like it better as it is in IE8 where the Tabs are where they belong – attached right to the top of the web page. And I know I'm not alone with this.
I could live with the Tabs directely underneath, left or right of the web page. but where they have put it in IE9 is plain idiotic.
I hope Microsoft is going to fix that.

So do I!

Along with lots of others, I have posted on the Microsoft Feedback forum about this. I will keep everyone informed if there is any response on the threads to which I have subscribed.

Firefox has gone that way too =/ but at least you can change it. Ive sort of got used to it now, I like the way the major browsers now look pretty similar. (Although if you'd asked me a year ago I would have said I hate the "Chrome-like" interface, guess I've got used to it)

Anymahoo, back on topic, Haven't really noticed that many bugs with IE9, but then agan I guess I probably don't use it enough to really qualify that statement.

ok guys on my test pc IE9 is installed and I am testing with it on there.

My view is the same as before, it is blindingly fast and has some good changes, however the gui to me is a bomb and is a major downgrade in functionality. A gui thats inefficient to use wipes out the improvements in web page speeds. After looking into it more I have concluded 2 things.

(a) microsoft listened to web developers instead of end users, as dev's think IE9 is great.
(b) they focusing on future web apps and cloud computing as well as how the browser works on mobile devices. So the time of it been primarily a desktop browser is coming to an end.

Apologies if this already been previously posted but I found a good page which has listed features lost from IE8 to IE9. I assume the people who like IE9 as such find these lost features not important, for me tho some are very important.

• Internet Explorer 9 setup cannot be sequenced using Microsoft App-V.
• Tabs from the previous session (after IE is closed and opened again) can no longer be opened selectively. Only tabs from current session which were recently closed can be selectively opened or the entire last session has to be opened.
• The dedicated search box has been removed. Searches can be performed from the address bar as was already possible in all previous IE releases. Because of the removal of the search box, users have to repeatedly type the same search terms if they want to search using a different search provider. Textual descriptions for search providers are no longer shown except in a tooltip when hovered over.
• Tab list menu button has been removed. (Accessible using Ctrl+Shift+Q)
• The page title is no longer shown in the browser's title bar.
• Each download does not get its own button on the taskbar showing the progress of individual downloads. All downloads are grouped without user preference in a single download manager button.
• The progress bar when loading pages and 'Done' message after page loading is complete have been removed from the status bar.
• All functionality from the status bar except zoom button and showing hyperlink upon mouse hover has been removed. The status bar in Internet Explorer 8 showed security zone info, Protected Mode status, SmartScreen information, certificates info, addon manager, pop-up blocker, privacy policy/report and InPrivate Filtering status.
• The ability to freely move browser elements in unlocked state has been removed. The menu bar, favorites bar and command bar could be moved in Internet Explorer 8.
• Large icons cannot be used on the command bar.
• Completed MB and the progress bar have been removed when downloading.
• The Notification Bar replaces the Information Bar which appeared above the page content. The Notification Bar overlaps a certain part of the page and requires the user to close it to see underlying parts of the page.
• Internet Explorer can no longer be set to notify download completion with only a sound. Every download completion shows a visual notification on top of the page which has to be closed.
• When clearing browsing history from within the browser, there is no progress bar or any sort of indication. Instead, a visual notification is shown on the notification bar which has to be closed by the user to see underlying page content.
• Save As is no longer the default option when downloading files. Instead Save is the now the default option which always saves to the Downloads folder.
• The about:tabs page cannot have the status bar enabled. Recently closed tabs from the current or previous session no longer show the URL below.
• The following configurable options have been removed without explanation:
- Reset text size to medium while zooming.
- Force offscreen compositing even under Terminal Server.
- Enable page transitions.
- Always use ClearType for HTML.
- Smart image dithering.
- Print background colors and images.
- Do not submit unknown addresses to your auto search provider and Just display the results in the main window.
- Security Zone settings: Automating prompting for file downloads.
- Security Zone settings: Open files based on content, not file extension.

original info from here XP was my idea: Features removed and degraded in Windows Internet Explorer 9

Now I have been trying to make IE9 viable to use.

There is a free tool called 'classic shell' which adds progress bar back to the status bar and also adds the security zone status back as well. However the privacy report icon remains missing, I will explain the impact of that.

On IE8 if a cookie is blocked on a page then the privacy report icon is shown on the status bar, a simple double click on it will show the blocked cookies and can right click to allow them. On IE9 I have to use the menus to access the privacy report and the cookies listed are a global list for the entire browser so it will list all blocked cookies for any site visited and as such its messier and cannot determine so easily whats been blocked on the current page. I have requested to the author of classic shell to see if he can restore this to IE9.

......................

For the cleartype font issue, there is a workaround however I have not tested this workaround yet. Here is the info. DWrite.dll wrapper - SoftwareNinjas.ca It is a wrapper which has it disabled, this to me is a very messy solution as there could be unpredictable behaviour using these 3rd party files and the risk of IE9 updates overwriting them but is a solution nevertherless.

With all this done the only 2 issues I get left with on IE9 is probably the theme issue where IE9 looks a bit odd with my theme and the privacy report problem. The loss of configurable options I am curious as well as to what the defaults are hardcoded to and why they got removed but they probably not showstoppers. I hope this post helps others who have the same concerns as me with IE9.