Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview hits Windows 7

Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview hits Windows 7

Microsoft has had a busy few weeks. SharePoint 2013 was just unveiled at the worldwide conference in Las Vegas, Windows 8 is fresh off the presses, and now here comes Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7. Well the Release Preview anyway. We kind of already know what is new, as this is basically the version that ships with Windows 8, but it is heartening to see Microsoft put so much work in to get the WIndows 7 version right.

Ported over from Win 8 IE10 are the Chakra and JavaScript engines, the touch API, and a heap of new security measures.  What does all this actually mean? Well you get better support for CSS text and graphic effects (things like 3D transforms and SVG filters). A bounty of CSS layout features is included (multiple columns, grids, and positioned floats). And let us not forget improved support for HTML5 (think drag and drop, sandboxing, and better support for local storage).

Touch support is interesting, but probably less useful on Windows 7 than Windows 8 (the jury is still out on how useful/adopted it will be). Enhanced security is a different story, and will be welcomed by everyone. Internet Explorer 10 offers improved download protection and is one of the few browsers to turn on “Do Not Track” by default (the feature that tells websites not to collect your details as you pass through).

This is a welcome release for Windows 7 users, or will be when it hits a stable version. Performance is impressive, if not quite up there with Chrome 23 and Firefox 16, but will probably improve slightly upon official release. Expect this just after Christmas.