Choice

You missed out my number one favourite feature: IE9 doesn't keep asking you if you *really* *really* *really wanted to download that file you just asked it to download ;-)

Love IE9 but when will notifications be availible for pinned sites when not using the large icon option in the taskbar?

Performance wise IE9 has been good but I do think tabs & button layout still need improvement and IE is due for a complete UI overhaul of setting dialogs.  Looking forward to what UI improvements you've made in IE10...which hopefully will be ready very soon.

I find it quite amusing MS touts choice when:

1.  IE9 does not offer choice for XP customers. They are stuck with IE8 even if they are loyal IE web users.

2.  IE9 removes many IE8 features even on Windows 7 and Vista without giving any choice.

IE9 is all about:

1.   Pushing Windows 7 sales than pushing the web forward. Other browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera all 4 of them and all the other ones continue to support XP)

2.   Taking away control like Apple does by removing features like dedicated search box, search provider discovery, tab list button, page title, progress bar, download details like MB complete and download progress bar, status bar features and browser chrome customization and free movement of toolbars.

@xpclient

Oh no, we have stopped supporting a 10 year old ancient OS! Seriously, IE9 is about moving the web forward, which means that your OS has to be able to support the web easily. Obviously the features that IE9 for XP would have had would not have helped advance the web, considering that it would mean holding more people to a decade old system.

I wonder why nobody complained when IE7 didn't support ME or 2000, but now you are complaining about IE not supporting an OS that was even older when IE9 launched then 2000 when IE7 launched.

Your statement that MS took away control on IE9 is preposterous and downright laughable. Taking away the search box is not removing a feature, it's making the browser more streamlined. Besides, you can search from the address bar, which proves the search bar irrelevant. Not only that, but this new search box called the "address bar" can also be accessed with Ctrl+L! Also, why would you need a download progress bar when the download already shows percent completed? The status bar can easily be shown on IE9. Anyway, not including certain features doesn't mean you are removing choice, it just means there's always room to improve. Many of the flaws with IE9 you described are minor, although some can be great additions for IE10 to include, such as customizing and tab listing.

Oh, and IE team, how come the IE6 Countdown page hasn't been updated for January's stats yet?

@Ning Ning Sun, "We have stopped...."? Do you work for Microsoft? Then no wonder you will be supporting their decision.

Windows XP is still the most used OS ahead of Windows 7. And that speaks for itself why despite being 10 year old, Windows 7 isn't more successful. By "upgrading" to Windows 7 from XP, power users also end up losing a lot of features, so it's moving backward in terms of user experience and interface productivity, not forward. See en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista and en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7 . If you are not a power user, you won't be bothered by these changes. In IE9 too, you don't miss these features because you don't need them. So are you of the opinion that Microsoft products should be engineered for the lowest common denominator so power users' needs are not served at all?

The idea that hardware acceleration can be a requirement for surfing the web with modern standards itself is preposterous and downright laughable, unless you want to tie it to proprietary DirectX technologies so your Windows sales will be more. Which is why other browsers do not abandon their customers.

Frankly I think improvements in IE are a long time coming. One of them might be "actually" giving user a choice. If users really had a choice of whether or not to install Internet Explorer on the installation of Windows, would it still be in such widespread use today?

I wrote more about this on my blog - when choice is not a choice:

blog.cwl.cc/.../when-choice-is-not-choice.html

I feel so bad to use IE in front of my friends. Because IE without a question fails on me. Oh yes.. IE9 if you are looking for the version. Why IE9 is on its knees when I use social networking website? Why can other browsers work falwlesly and IE9 just humiliates its customers in front of other browser users? Just logon into one of the famous social networking sites, search for a component in a semiconductor website, a dating site or anything. IE9 works pefrectly as long as i stick to bing, hotmail and other MS products. Not even a news site is reponsive. How many times do i have to reinstall IE9? IE9 just acts retarded at my school's classroom site. Every click responds at random time. The longer i keep the browser open, the more and more broken it acts.

Still I keep forcing myself to IE9 because i love the MS engeering team. They made some of the best stuffs out there. Also to remind you that IE has gone wrong and fails miserably on my day to day activities.

Fix it or remove the IE section from this blog.

Sometimes if the system shuts unexpectedly, on next boot IE9 forgets all the preferences. These include:

1. The :visited hyperlinks, the popular sites on about:Tabs page.. though the history (Ctrl+H) and that of onebar (Ctrl+E) remains intact

2. Bing language preference.

3. Forgets the autocomplete fields' value.

4. IE amnesia -> Forgets login session/cookie for Live and other web-apps.

and so on..

Please prevent IE10 from this disaster!