Under pressure in the search and browser markets Microsoft has moved to improve the capability of their popular Internet Explorer browser with a new IE9 version.
During the past five years Microsoft has seen its share of the browser market fall from a high of 90% to 60% today.
Under pressure from Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome Microsoft has moved to deliver more of the web site being browsed by launching new tabs and control bar.
Launched 18 months ago Google Chrome has captured 7.5% of the market despite only being released in December 2008.
Firefox 4 has 25% of the market and in some countries is the dominant web browser.
With their new offering IE 9 offers a much cleaner design than previous versions of the browser, with enhanced support for HTML 5 and CSS 3 standards, hardware acceleration utilising your computer’s GPU.
Microsoft has also included a number of integrated features for Windows 7 users, including the ability to drag and drop browser tabs to the taskbar for permanent links to favourite websites as well as customised forward and back buttons, and jump lists which will take you to specific areas of the site.
Several observers believe that this release gets them back in the game “technologically and really takes advantage of Windows”.
IE9 contains many new features, many of which are designed to make the browser perform more like an app – the small programs commonly found on smartphones.
These specialist pieces of software, which offer a customised and intuitive way to interact with a website, are gaining increasing popularity.
To do this, Microsoft has adopted technology that allows the browser to tap directly into a computer’s graphics chip, rather than just its processor.
Many features will be familiar to users of other browsers
This “hardware acceleration” makes web pages more nimble and behaves more like software running directly on the computer.
“The web browsers of the day weren’t taking advantage of the power of the hardware, really only about 10%, skimming the surface of the power of a PC,” Tami Reller, corporate vice president of Windows, told BBC News.
“We wanted to make sure we’re using 100% of the PC to bring the best experience possible.”
“There are [one] billion Windows customers and about 60% of their time is spent browsing the web. The sites and the content that customers are gravitating towards is very graphically rich – they want to watch videos, manipulate and see photos,” said Ms Reller.
