Well, well, well. Would you take a look at that. It seems that the browser pictured in the image above is the upcoming Microsoft Internet Explorer 9. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft apparently posted the photo on the Microsoft Russia PR site. Alas, the company later pulled the image for obvious reasons.
However, Mary-Jo Foley from ZDNet managed to save the photo and some information just before it was taken down. Thereby giving us a first look at the soon-to-be-announced IE9. Internet Explorer 9 is expected to be announced on September 15 in an exclusive event titled “Beauty of the Web” at the Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco, California.
Anyway, according to Mary-Jo Foley and the image above, the new Internet Explorer 9 will include the following features:
- A minimal user interface
- A simplified navigation bar
- Combined address and search bar — similar to Google Chrome
- All menus found in previous versions of IE have been compiled into just one
In addition, it seems that “Recognized” or “protected” sites will be treated as Windows applications. This feature was apparently described and translated by Bing as:
“(C)lick the pins in the address bar or click the site in a new tab and drag it to the taskbar. That’s all. If the site is pinned, it displays an icon that is separate from the Internet Explorer. Now from the website you are just one click.”
The browser will also include the ability to “tear-off- tabs and snap them as separate windows using the Aero Snap feature on Windows 7 — similar to Firefox and Safari. The feature was described as:
“Often a task must open several Web pages or screens. Advanced tabs in combination with Windows Aero Snap is a quick way to display two or two-page spread. To do this, simply drag the page in different screen and will appear next to each other. Reproduction of content sites and video are not violated.”
“Microsoft is encouraged by the early enthusiasm around Internet Explorer 9; we have nothing further to share about Internet Explorer 9 at this time,” said a Microsoft spokesperson when asked about this.
Let us know what you think of the upcoming Internet Explorer 9.
via Erictric