More than meets the eye
A redesigned ‘new tab' window has been added to show frequently visited sites for easy access. This may be 'borrowed' directly from Chrome, but it doesn't make it any less of a welcome addition. There's no ability to pin pages to this screen yet, but the options to open recently closed tabs or the complete last session are present.
Jump if you want to go faster
The big new feature - and one that's genuinely unique - is the ability to pin sites to the Windows 7 taskbar. By pulling a tab out of the browser window - another new but long-overdue feature - and dragging it to the taskbar, the browser will pin it there like an application, complete with its own icon. While support is limited so far, certain sites - including Facebook, Amazon (in the US, but not the UK), IMDB and Twitter - will then automatically populate the jump list with popular locations, actions or frequently visited areas.
For those among us who leave certain windows open all day long for frequent access to certain services - namely e-mail and social networking - this could make getting things done a lot quicker and easier.
There are plenty of other small changes in the IE9 beta - far too many to list here - but the one resounding statement is that Microsoft seems to have made a good browser. Whether it will win over the masses, or even individuals, is yet to be seen but it's certainly a worthy competitor.
We know that many of you already have, but we recommended that everyone give Internet Explorer 9 a go, just to see what it has to offer. It can be downloaded from Microsoft now in 32-bit and 64-bit versions for Windows Vista and Windows 7.
