The New York Times: Three great things about IE9 beta

For self-proclaimed geeks, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera are all better than IE. But IE9 does have some distinguishing features.

Hardware acceleration increases speed. First of all, IE9 is fast. Internet Explorer has always felt bloated and slow, especially compared to Google Chrome. But after using both browsers for a week, I found that IE9 and Chrome were roughly equal in speed on my PC.

Emulate competitors. Second, IE9 adds some of the best features of other browsers. For the first time, Internet Explorer users can expand the URL bar to the entire width of the screen. In addition, users can search directly in the address bar.

Create a website icon in the taskbar. Third, Microsoft has understood that users view websites (Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, eBay) as separate entities, just as they did desktop apps in the 1990s. Users can drag any website into the Windows taskbar, which automatically creates an icon that becomes a standalone application like the "e" icon in IE. This mimics the way apps are arranged on the iPhone, where each website can be treated as a separate app.

The performance is basically stable. How stable is IE9 beta? I haven't had too many problems yet, but the browser occasionally tells me that the beta version means it hasn't fully cleaned up the bug. When reading MSN.com news, IE9 sometimes distorts the page completely. But it's also part of the "long test" culture of the Internet age. For most people, the quick boot and new features more than compensate for the occasional page rendering problem.

Microsoft has not yet determined when IE9 will replace IE8 as the pre-installed browser on all new Windows PCS, but it should be at least a few months away. The product is currently only available as a download. But if Microsoft continues to evolve its fast launches, popular features, and app-like taskbar ICONS, PC users may not need to swap IE for another browser next year.