COMPUTER SUPPORT Tips from the Gonzales, LA Computer Pro – The New Internet Explorer

While many people have switched to Firefox or Opera for their browsing needs, it’s hard for those of us providing COMPUTER SUPPORT IN Gonzales, Louisiana to ignore the impending release of Internet Explorer 9.0 – which is newly available for public beta testing from Microsoft.

As expected, the new Internet Explorer is only available for Windows 7 and Vista, with no XP version provided. Since Windows XP has reached the end of its service life, users who have yet to upgrade will need to be satisfied with Internet Explorer 8… but you use the internet as an integral part of your job, the new features and capabilities of Internet Explorer 9 may convince you to take the plunge and upgrade.

Those providing IT SUPPORT IN GONZALES LOUISIANA will find it refreshing that the Javascript engine of Internet Explorer 9 is not just improved over previous versions, but actually outperforms other modern browsers. The scripting engine in previous IE versions has generally lagged behind competitors, and as scripted websites have become more and more common, this has made IE feel sluggish. The new engine, however, speeds things up considerably on dynamic sites with heavy scripting.

The Achilles’ heel of Internet Explorer has always, of course, been standards compliance. While on par with browsers of its time at each major release, the slower release cycle of IE versions has often left it far behind other more-agile browser teams as standards have evolved and progressed.

Internet Explorer 9, as usual, brings standards support to near-parity with other modern options… offering significant support for CSS3 and HTML5, and improved support for DOM levels 2 and 3. Notably, one of the complaints developers frequently make about the way Internet Explorer handles spaces has been handled in the same way as other industry-standard browsers, allowing Javascript and ECMAscript code working with it to operate compatibly in all major browsers.

Web developers will particularly enjoy the new video and canvas elements from HTML5, and designers will find many new possibilities in the new border-radius and opacity properties for CSS3. Design elements such as alpha channels and HSL color model make it easier than ever before to design cross-browser sites that comply with modern standards.

While this makes Internet Explorer an attractive option at the moment, only time will tell whether standards support will remain updated between versions, and – if history is any guide – those who need the latest and greatest web standards may well find that IE simply does not keep pace.

The single most powerful feature of Internet Explorer, however, is that anyone providing COMPUTER SUPPORT IN GONZALES LA can generally rely on Internet Explorer being installed and available on any machine. For those people, the all-around improved rendering engine makes this reliable and consistent option much more pleasant to use; offloading much of the work to the graphics card rather than the CPU, Internet Explorer 9 now renders pages faster and better than ever before.

In short, Internet Explorer has effectively caught up to the state of the art. While it may not provide all the bells and whistles of Firefox with a full complement of plugins, it’s a stable and reliable browser which renders quickly and efficiently to modern standards. If you’re using Windows 7 or Vista, you owe it to yourself to upgrade – you’ll be surprised at how far Internet Explorer has come.

Phillip Singletary is a provider of professional COMPUTER SUPPORT IN Gonzales LA. If you need IT SUPPORT for your small business, please contact us at sales@latechnologysolutions.com

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