Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview shows big improvements

Microsoft released a platform preview for Internet Explorer 9 last week and I downloaded and installed it today, and compared some results with IE8, Firefox 3.6.2 and Google Chrome 4.1.249 and would like to share the results with you.

First, the release notes of Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview is here. This version can only be installed on Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7, so check your system before download. Even if your system does not meet the requirements, you still can visit the test drive site to see the new and improved features in IE 9.

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark Results (http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider-driver.html)

Compare to IE 8, IE 9 Platform Preview already has a huge improvement on JavaScript Benchmark test, about 6.5 times faster than IE 8. The results also shows better performance than Firefox 3.6, but not as good as Google Chrome, however, it is very impressive for such a early release.

Because of the different hardware configuration, I couldn’t get the exact results as above, but the result ratio of IE 9 and other browsers (IE 8, Firefox, and Chrome) is very close. For example, according to the data above, IE9/IE8 = 598.8/3825.53 = 0.1565, my results show that IE9/IE8 = 1358.0/8886.8 = 0.1528. For Firefox, my results show that IE9/Firefox = 1358.0/1711.4 = 0.7935 vs. IE9/Firefox = 598.0/699.8 = 0.8545.

Acid3 Test for Web Standards (http://acid3.acidtests.org/)

IE 8

IE 8 (Compatible Mode)

IE 9 Platform Preview

Firefox 3.6.2

Google Chrome 4.1.249

Only Google Chrome passed the Web Standards Test and IE 8 Compatible Mode had the worst result with a poor score of 13/100. IE 8 improved not much and IE 9 still has a long way to go to pass the test.

CSS3 Selectors Test (http://tools.css3.info/selectors-test/test.html)

IE 8

IE 8 Compatible Mode

IE 9 Platform Preview

Firefox 3.6.2

Google Chrome 4.1.249

Google Chrome, Firefox, and IE 9 Platform Preview all passed the test and neither of IE8 or IE8 Compatible Mode passed the test (no surprise I think).

I am impressed by the results of IE 9 Platform Preview and am interested in trying the future release of it.

P.S. At some point, my CSS3 Selectors test results in IE 9 Platform Preview failed. After I relaunched IE 9 Platform Preview and the test passed. Don’t know what caused the problem.