IE11 Gives Microsoft A Shot At Browser Redemption

Internet Explorer is a hard product to
love. It was so bad for so long and
Microsoft abused its position of having
the dominant browser for so many
years that even today, with a few solid
releases under its belt, IE still feels
like the browser you should hate. But
with IE11, which just launched with the
Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft is
finally stepping up its game to the point
where there’s a reason to take IE
seriously again. And it deserves
another look from both developers and
users.
Microsoft didn’t go into all that much
depth when it discussed IE11 during its
Build keynotes, but during an IE-
focused press briefing, the company
opened up a bit more about the state of
its browser. The main takeaway from
that session, at least for me, was that
Microsoft believes that the fact that it
only has to focus on one platform
allows it to build a superior browser.
Other browsers, the message was,
have to work on so many platforms and
that means the developers have to
make too many compromises.
With being fully focused on Windows
and Windows RT, Microsoft argues, it
can include fast hardware-accelerated
features like WebGL and even
significantly faster font rendering. It’s
not just 3D content where IE is now
competitive (and often ahead of the
competition). While Microsoft often
shied away from putting standard
JavaScript benchmarks on it screen
and argued that “real world”
performance was more important, it
now proudly put the usual Kraken,
Octane and SunSpider numbers on the
screen. The results are indeed
impressive. I repeated some of these
benchmarks myself and IE11 always
easily beat Chrome and Firefox in all of
these (arguably unscientific) tests.
If you want to see an impressive
example of IE11 in action, try out
Microsoft’s new Lawn Mark 2013 and
Levitation demos.
There are other features that make IE11
interesting, too. The new pinned sites
feature in the Start Menu, for example,
allows any site to create an app-like
experience on the Windows 8.1
desktop. Bookmarks are now synced
over SkyDrive and the browser is
integrated with the new Reading List
feature in Windows 8.1 (though sadly,
there is no Instapaper-like,
distraction-free reading mode).
Microsoft is really focusing on touch in
the browser, and with Pointer Events,
it’s working to make this a W3C
standard for all browsers.
All of this doesn’t mean IE11 is perfect,
though. Far from it. While it now finally
supports standards like WebGL and
has support for SPDY (something
Microsoft did not exactly highlight),
WebRTC is still missing in action. The
Metro/Windows 8-style version of IE is
also still decoupled from the desktop
version. It’s also still not clear
whether IE11 will ever come to
Windows 7, though Microsoft pretty
clearly hinted at this during its Build
press briefing.
Overall, IE11 gives Microsoft a shot at
being taken seriously again in the
browser game. Even though it’s not a
dominant player anymore, it still owns
a lot of market share around the world.
And no matter how you feel about
Microsoft, a better IE makes for a better
web ecosystem for both developers
and users.