Feature: The most modern browser there is: Internet Explorer 9 reviewed
When Microsoft first introduced Internet Explorer 9 at PDC in November 2009, it didn't show much. A few benchmarks, some talk about the technologies that the browser would use, and a little information about the direction that development would take.
Context & Ripple Effects
Internet Explorer 9 arrives as the endpoint of a slow public reveal: Microsoft showed little more than benchmarks and a development direction when it introduced the browser at PDC in November 2009, then spent 2010 staging previews, capping them with a final platform preview in August and a beta dated for September 15. It shipped out of beta on March 14, one day before this review, with an early hands-on already circulating.
The verdict matters because of who is saying it: reviewers are calling IE9 the most modern browser there is — a striking position for the browser long treated as the laggard. Launch-week coverage travelled widely, with Engadget among the outlets picking it up, including its note on WebM video support arriving via a preview plug-in sourced from Google. The timing also lands inside a wider Microsoft pivot, with Windows Phone 7's marketplace having crossed 10,000 apps and reports — unconfirmed — that Zune hardware is being wound down.
First-order effects
- Windows 7 users get immediate access to what reviewers judge the most modern browser on the market, and Microsoft gains its strongest browser talking point in years against Chrome and Firefox.
- Web developers can begin relying on IE9's standards and acceleration support in production, ending the assumption that Internet Explorer alone holds back the modern web.
Second-order effects
- The competitive pressure flips onto Microsoft's rivals, whose differentiation now has to rest on cadence and features rather than on IE's obsolescence — while Google's willingness to supply a WebM preview plug-in signals codec politics softening enough for cooperation even between browser competitors.
- IE9 strengthens Microsoft's broader platform pitch: with Windows Phone 7 still scaling its app catalogue and Zune's future unconfirmed, a credible desktop browser gives the company a coherent story tying Windows 7, the web, and its mobile ambitions together.
Third-order effects
- If Microsoft sustains this pace, browser competition shifts structurally from 'catch up to the standard' to 'out-execute on speed and security', raising the baseline every vendor must meet.
- A modern IE reduces the last major excuse for enterprise and developer lock-in to legacy rendering behaviour, pushing the industry toward treating the browser as a uniform application platform across operating systems.
The trend: Browsers are re-emerging as the front line of the platform wars, with release cadence, hardware acceleration, and standards compliance replacing installed base as the currency of competition.