Microsoft today released a beta version of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) and introduced consumers to its vision of site-centric browsing and the promise of a more beautiful Web.
At a launch event in San Francisco, Microsoft announced that the IE9 beta is now available in 33 languages worldwide for download. With a simple user interface that masks new technical muscle and all-around fast performance, the new browser is designed to take a backseat and bring forward the full beauty of the websites and applications people care about, says Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Internet Explorer.
“The Web is about sites, and your browser should be, too,” Hachamovitch says. “IE9 puts you and your site at the center of the browser experience.”
Starting today, tech-savvy consumers can download the beta of IE9 and test drive the new browsing experience at some of the Web’s most popular sites. At the “Beauty of the Web” event in San Francisco, more than 70 top sites and global brands showcased new sites and Web-based applications they have built to take advantage of the new capabilities IE9 offers. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn, and global brands such as Quiksilver, Red Bull, Livestrong and Amazon are showcasing experiences that take advantage of IE9’s ability to tap into the power of the whole PC and modern standards such as HTML5 to offer rich immersive experiences, and to integrate sites seamlessly with Windows 7. “When you add up all these sites, today over 800 million visitors – or two-thirds of active internet users – have a better Web on Windows experiences enabled today by IE9,” says Ryan Gavin, senior director of Internet Explorer.
These sites, which customers can discover by visiting www.BeautyoftheWeb.com, mark a new era in browsing, where websites will increasingly look, feel and perform more like Windows applications, Gavin says.
