Microsoft IE9 release candidate now available

Microsoft has made available the release candidate (RC) of IE9, adding a boost in browsing performance, a new Tracking Protection feature for enhanced privacy, built-in support for geo-location, user interface improvements and semantic tags.

Available now to download from Microsoft's site at beautyoftheweb.co.uk, IE9 RC is expected to be the final build before the full version of the new browser is released, which is now likely to fall within the next month or two.

"This build is feature complete, barring any bug fixes, and it gives a chance for admins to evaluate IE9 and see if they are ready to deploy it when released, " said Mark Quirk, IE product manager for Microsoft UK.

Microsoft said that the new build is about 35 per cent faster than the IE9 beta released last September, and claimed that it is the fastest browser currently available based on SunSpider benchmark results.

The major selling points for the new browser are that it has greater compatibility with web standards, particularly HTML5, than earlier versions of IE, and hardware-assisted acceleration using a PC's GPU to accelerate graphics and video, and making use of multi-core processors to speed processing of pages.

IE9 RC also debuts new features including Tracking Protection, which the company had already said that it would support.

This privacy feature is based around Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs) of sites to which the user does not want the browser to disclose information, such as those serving up web adverts.

Anyone can create a TPL, according to Quirk, but Microsoft's intention is that administrators can build lists and distribute them to IE9 users inside their organisation.

IE9 RC ships with four ready-made TPLs generated by PrivacyChoice, TRUSTe, Abine and Adblock, Microsoft said.

Also new in this version is geo-location support, which is actually an HTML5 feature. Smartphone users will be familiar with this feature, which allows web sites to see your location and serve up localised content, providing you consent, based on IP address, Wi-Fi or GPS location information.

Microsoft has also improved IE9's support for semantic tags, an HTML5 feature to help web site creators simplify the structure of code.

Beyond this, IE9 RC includes a number of user-facing enhancements such as the ability to pause and resume downloads, an option to show browser tabs on a separate row from the address bar, and the ability to identify a search request by prefixing it with a question mark when typing into the address bar.

Ironically, the last two changes appear to fix issues with a feature of the IE9 beta, where the address bar, search box and buttons were all integrated into a single line at the top of the browser.