Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta: An Early Review

Screenshot of what I see as I type this post in IE9 Beta. Exciting, right?

I've been a beta tester for various products going way back to the early nineties. I like being an "early adopter," but not so much if I have to pay for it. Beta testing software is usually free, and only involves the frustrations of dealing with bugs in the product. I've beta tested AOL since version 4 or so. I've beta tested some sign software. Also Windows XP and Windows 7.  Most of the time, it's pretty cool. Sometimes, you're itching to "undo."

I use software in ways others do not, which is obvious by the number of times I've been able to crash software and hardware, beta or not. When perusing (I hate the term surfing) the internet, I most often use AOL, even after all these years. I like the container aspect of it, with all my windows arranged as I want them. Doing the same thing with other browsers involves too much shifting windows to the front. AOL just works for me.  But when it comes to blogging, checking my page hits, using Facebook, TDAmeritrade, Twitter and such, I mostly use Microsoft Internet Explorer. And so far, I'm making no fans among PC geeks (or the Cult of Mac either).  I do use Safari on my Mac PowerBook, and both Firefox and Google Chrome on the PC on occasion, so simmer down.

But I tend to mostly toggle between AOL and IE8. But the other day, Internet Explorer was having fits with Blogger, the Google application on which I write this blog. It just wouldn't behave. But I remembered that I'd seen a "try IE9 Beta!" ad recently, and thought I'd give it a try. What the hey, right? So I went to Microsoft's web site, and there it was. Downloading and installation was a breeze, and very quick. It asked me to reboot, as expected, so I did.

After the quick reboot (something I truly dig about Windows 7), I noticed that the blue "e" logo on the IE button was slightly (but not very) different. I clicked it, and greeted my new browser. There is no "title bar" as there is in most Windows programs. Nothing is up there to indicate what program you're using. The "Back" button is the largest thing in the top area of the screen for some reason, but its bottom is lopped off (which looks like an error). The address bar is right up there next to "back" and "forward", and the page tabs line up right beside that, higher than they used to be. And that's it. There's no menu bar, no shortcut buttons, no "home" no "print" no nothing. It's very disconcerting.

After a Google search, I found that you can bring the menu bar back by pressing an "ALT" key. But so far, I have to do that every time I want the menus. It won't stay put. The shortcut buttons can be accessed from the "View" menu after you press "ALT." Same with the Command Bar, Status Bar and other things. Curious that there is no obvious place to do this if you don't know about pressing "ALT."  But you know the worst part? Everything seems to work fine in Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta. . .except Blogger. Every Blogger blog is herky jerky, and scrolls like you've got a bad connection. Grrrr. Maybe the next release will be better.