IE9 final preview live, near perfect in Acid3

Microsoft today posted the fourth and last Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9 with its first truly high web accuracy score. The release finally moves the company's new Chakra engine for JavaScript into the browser itself and scores 95 on the historically difficult Acid3 accuracy test. While still short of the perfect scores of Apple's Safari and Google Chrome, the result is roughly on par with Firefox 4 and addresses a longstanding complaint of inaccuracy in IE.

A perfect score isn't deemed essential at this stage as the remaining standards are ones seen as in transition. Formats such as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) aren't considered a high priority as their use has been declining and in some cases discouraged.

At least one beta of IE9 is due and should follow the same pacing for a release as earlier previews, which puts the more publicly available version of the browser sometime in September. No clues have been given of the timetable for a final release, but CEO Steve Ballmer is due to host a pre-CES keynote on January 5 that could be a vehicle for the finished version.

IE9 is one of the first Microsoft browsers designed primarily with accuracy in mind and will bring the browser up to date with technologies that have existed elsewhere for months or years, such as partial HTML5 support. It will be the first Microsoft browser to use graphics hardware acceleration for rendering and could outpace Safari 5 on Windows.

By Electronista Staff