IE9 RC is out.

[Ravenwood]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/internet-explorer/products/ie-9/welcome-upgrade2

I decided to give the IE9 RC a try instead of just condemning it out of hand.  It seems to be a vast improvement from IE8 so far.  I'm mainly an Opera user, with a seconday favor to Chrome,and Firefail trailing 3rd for specific pages only.

IE9 Pros:
+  Zippy. Faster than Firefox, on par with Chrome and Opera.
+  Improved security options, including direct control over toolbars and addons.
+  Compatibility View to see pages rendered for IE7/8
+  InPrivate Browsing, cookies are stored in memory only, and cache is flushed on exit.  (InPorn browsing)
+  Lightweight, the download was 2.5MB, and the install directory is under 6MB. It seems to use a LOT of registry hacking.


IE9 Cons:
-  Importation of bookmarks from Opera VERY POOR!!!11eleven!  (Bookmarks were neatly sorted before, and a massive jumbled mess after.)
-  Many Opera shortcuts don't work the same, ditto with Chrome.
-  Untested from a security standpoint.
-  Promised GPU integration for graphic/video seems to be disabled.
-  Flash (Youtube) is buggy, doesn't seem to run properly.
-  Install required a reboot because of all the registry hacks added.


The jury's still out for me.  The light-weight install, and increased security is a very good start, and I can see it making major in-roads on netbooks and tablets because of those reasons.