Microsoft Releases IE11 Dev Previewfor Windows 7

Microsoft launched on Thursday the developer preview of Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 . It follows the release of Microsoft's latest browser in Windows 8.1 Preview, which requires Windows 8 customers to install the OS update before they can test-drive the latest Internet Explorer build. 

The company confirmed late last month that the browser would eventually be brought to Windows 7 customers although a time frame was not provided. "In IE11, developers can build next generation experiences with professional-quality Web video, and hyper-fast 2D and 3D Web technologies that make the most of the underlying hardware," the company said. 

"IE11 supports real world standards and compatibility, and new developer tools enable developers to build high-performance Web experiences." Microsoft said that Windows 7 customers will receive all of the performance, security, and under-the- hood changes that went into the Windows 8.1 version. 

These include natively decoding JPG images and text in real-time on the GPU – both of which are the heart and soul of the Internet. It also implements the W3C Resource Priorities standard enabling developers to specify which parts of the page are important and need to be loaded first. 

"IE11 also supports HTML5 link prefetching and pre-rendering, so developers can help the browser anticipate where you’ll go next and get those pages ready," the company said. "On Windows 8.1, IE11 also supports the SPDY network protocol, the precursor to the HTTP 2.0 specification, enabling some sites to be downloaded faster.

" Microsoft also pleads its case regarding IE11 supremacy and the new Chakra JavaScript engine, claiming that it's significantly faster than Chrome, Firefox and Opera. 

On Windows 7, IE11 is 4 percent faster than IE10, and nearly 30 percent faster than the nearest competitive browser – according to the WebKit SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, that is. The company points out that Internet Explorer 11 supports WebGL for GPU- powered 2D and 3D graphics, and plugin-free HTML5-based video. All the latest standards for closed captioning is supported as well as is the HTML Full Screen API and WebCrypto. 

The version on Windows 8.1 also supports the latest media streaming standards, Media Source Extensions (MSE) and Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). "IE11 includes a completely re-designed and enhanced suite of in-browser F12 developer tools," the company said. "These tools help Web developers diagnose and optimize their apps quickly and efficiently. 

Having fast and reliable Web apps is more critical than ever. The new F12 supports the fast, iterative workflow used by modern Web developers. F12 helps developers get from problem to solution quickly with actionable data, enabling fast and fluid Web experiences."

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.