Today marks the final Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) platform preview before beta testing commences in September.  IE9 supports HTML5 and features the new Chakra JavaScript engine.  Test scores now give it a whopping 95 out of a 100 for Acid  3’s test renderings.  Looking at the new platform examples, one of particular note was the Hamster Dance Revolution game.  Using Google Chrome, the game lagged considerably and was virtually unplayable especially in the later levels.  Using the IE9 render engine however, the game was a pleasure to play.  Of course, this particular example is geared towards IE9.  Going to other sites, I did find IE9 to be very quick and responsive.  There are still many bugs to squash however as Outlook Web Access would not load in this test version of IE9.  I like what I see so far – I’ll continue to use the IE9 preview platform to surf my favorite sites for a while.  For now, I’ll need to use CTRL+O to open each site and no back or forward buttons exist yet – but what do I expect from just a platform preview?

Download the new IE9 preview and get a glimpse of the future.