actually microsoft want you to move away from windows xp, so won't be relasing much more software for the aged beast.
Like Firefox 4 Beta (with hardware acceleration enabled) and Chrome Beta. You see, WE have fancy graphic card. Most people have Intel integrated graphics that can't play HD video, not even 720p,and can't even draw 2D properly. We update our computer, we get fancy menchy video card, most people don't. All they do is sruf the web and type test, heck they dont' even need (well now they need with Windows Vista/7 due to Aero and a push to larger screens and HD video's/movies) a Geforce 6100. Don't beleive me? Look at Vista? People trying to run Vista on their low end Celeron or P4 with their Intel. Vista "sucked balls" because of that. That too, obviously.
Well.. you do need a fairly good PC to run web browsers today with at least 2GB RAM. Take into account todays anti-virus software in the background, not to mention bloated XP on its 3rd service pack. I have just upgraded from a Pentium 4 2.6Ghz 1GB Ram system to a quad core because it couldn't handle simple tasks any more. 3-4 years ago it ran okay but browsers and OS have got bigger. Now I can literally fly with my new setup. Some new games are even quoting quad-core for their minimum specs. Microsoft have a massive XP user base, now they want Windows 7 to have a big take-up as well (especially after Vista). New software - requires new hardware - requires new software. Its the circle of life in the PC world.
correct Darren, may people forget that software gets more and more features, and more and more fancy in term of interface. This means more powerful computers. An example: If I open my old PaintShop Pro 7 (released in 2001), it used to be as slow as opening Photoshop today. Today, PaintShop Pro 7 opens as fast as MS Paint, but compared to the latest PaintShop Pro, not only the old one looks like MS Paint with layer support, but the new one version 13 I think, is close to PhotoShop, and take just as much time to start. It was for a reason why in the old days we did not have really nice programs as today.. it's not because "we did not know/care" (talking generally), but because every bit of CPU and memory power was critical.
^^ It's that kind of sensationalist journalism that grates my t*ts. It's obvious that MS would try to optimise for ACID3 or SunSpider. I would, if I were to develop a browser. I am sure mozilla does, and I am sure Google does. Seeing that everyone who's "In the know" (i.e. who is effecticvely a "PC guy" that thinks he know something) judges a browser based on that, it makes sense. Also, actually reading Hackernews (where people openly admit to IE-Bashing) shows that deeper analysis shows MS handling the code correctly (effectively: once the code says "Return now", IE returns, realising that anything written in the same function AFTER this is in fact irrelevant. It also then dumps the local scoped variables, as they won't be sued anymore. Changing the scope of that variable means that IE does spend the extra time to check -as far as I understood to cater for bad coding - the happenings to the variable. - don't quote me on this though,t hat's my interpretation based on no research of my own save for reading hackernews for all of 5 minutes). The conclusion, even on Hackernews is that while IE might be cheating, the test is retarded, and bears no resemblance to any real life performance of a browser,
I agree with BentAnat.. this is not new. Same applies with GPU's and Benchmark software. That is why I always ignore them reading them, and only look at real world results. Ever wonder why Intel GPU is doing pretty good in them, including Windows Experience Index, including the select popular games performance at minimum settings of it's Sandy Bridge... look closely at the pictures of the games.... Now, set your GPU under the same condition (pure minimum settings), notice that they are effects that are not being drawn at all... just to say that Intel GPU can now play games well above 30fps, even in some games at 60fps. Doing this is cheating big time. At least IE 9 is not doing what Intel does with Sandy Bridge.
Guys delete your browsing history: Click the cog > Safety > Delete Browsing History Then click the down arrow to the right of the Address Bar and tell me if your browsing history is still there or not. Mine is. How do I dump that before the missus see's goatse??
Mine deleted fine when I did it the other day. Altho it was being funny about saving recent history until I deleted all the old stuff.
IMO, Microsoft shouldn't bother with Internet explorer any more, its buggy, slow and a security risk.
I've uninstalled IE and gone back to Safari on all laptops and desktops. Even though I could probably fill a piece of A4 paper with improvements needed for Safari, it just feels right in comparison to IE. Appears much faster and easier to use. Less buggy, although I do realise IE9beta was a beta. Also Safari extensions includes adblock which works like a charm.
