INTERNET EXPLORER OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED LAST NIGHT

Microsoft officially brought Internet Explorer out of beta and RC last night. You can download the browser at Microsoft's website. IE9 will only run on any flavor of Vista or Win7, so you XP'ers are out of luck and stuck with IE8.

Microsoft has put a lot of work into their latest browser. Gone is the cluttered toolbars of IE8 and replaced with a simple layout. Some of the nicest features include Pinned Sites, which allows users to drag the tab out of IE9 and pin it directly to the Windows taskbar. When pinned it pulls the favicon so it looks like it's actually a separate program. Some sites will also support jump lists, which is the list of shortcuts that appears when you right click the icons (pictured above). For instance, when Twitter is pinned, you can could jump straight to Direct Mentions, Mentions, etc.

The address bar has also been improved and is more like the Google address bar. Now called the One Box, it doubles as a search engine, but you can actually view results in line. The default search engine is still Bing, but you can install Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Facebook and lots of others through the Add-On page.

Beyond those cool tricks and nice UI tweaks, the big change with IE9 is speed. The browser feels faster than IE8 and is very close to Chrome.

MICROSOFT'S INTERNET EXPLORER 9 TO RELEASE MARCH 14TH

The official release of Internet Explorer 9 will drop on March 14th, bringing along with it a massive overhaul that imbues IE with some desperately needed standards support, as well as a healthy speed boost and the benefit of hardware acceleration.

The first Platform Preview of IE9 dropped almost a year ago, and Microsoft has been consistently updating the previews and betas since then, fleshing out its HTML5 and CSS 3 compliance, along with improving its feature set. HTML5 and CSS 3 compliance are particularly nice to get, since IE8 doesn’t support HTML5 at all, and is at least part of the reason why the web has been slow to adopt the latest iteration of the standard.

Whether people will upgrade, though, is a big question. After all, Microsoft’s had a hard enough time killing off IE6, which still has a 12% share of the browser market after ten years. IE9 doesn’t even run on Windows XP, which is still one of the biggest operating systems in the world.

WINDOWS PHONE 7 TO GET IE9, MULTI-TASKING AND XBOX INTEGRATION

Microsoft is planning to introduce multi-tasking and full integration with Internet Explorer 9 in future updates to its Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system later this year. IE9 on Windows Phone 7 will use the same core browsing engine as on PCs. Microsoft also talked about the importance of multi-tasking, and claims it can now offer fast task switching without causing serious detriment to the battery life. In particular, Microsoft said, this will improve the experience of using third party applications. In a demo, a Microsoft engineer showed how a music application called 'Slacker' could keep music playing in the background while the user moved between different applications. By holding down the 'back' button, users can also see all their recently accessed applications, allowing them to switch easily between them.

RUMOR: INTERNET EXPLORER 9 UNVEILING FEB 10

Microsoft has announced a media event for February 10th. WinRumors is reporting Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) release candidate will be unveiled. The invite states "Members from the Internet Explorer team (and some special guests) will be visiting San Francisco in two weeks to share some important news. I know it's an extremely busy news week already, but we're hoping you can join us."

WinRumors says an escrow build of IE9 appeared online on Friday and that Microsoft has added a location privacy setting to the browser.

GOOGLE SAYS WEBM PLUG-INS COMING FOR SAFARI AND IE9

Google recently announced it was dropping support for the H.264 video codec from its Chrome HTML5 browser and supporting its own WebM open source codec. Google explained at the time that H.264 was not open source. They have released a further statement on the Chromium blog basically saying H.264 licenses cost money; Firefox and Opera don't support H.264 either; and big companies like Google are helping the little guy by championing this open alternative.

In the place of H.264, Google will be pushing its own video version named WebM, based on the VP8 codec. Google's version will be open source and free. They are currently working on a plug-in for Apple's Safari and Microsoft's IE9 browsers, neither of which include it out of the box.

MICROSOFT'S INTERNET EXPLORER 9 TO HAVE ANTI-TRACKING PROTECTIONS

Microsoft will debut anti-tracking technology as part of Internet Explorer 9, which will use “Tracking Protection Lists” (TPL) to better allow surfers control over which sites can see where they’ve been browsing previously. According to the company’s IE blog, the system will be similar to a “do not call” register for phones, with users creating lists of trusted or untrusted sites in their TPLs that set out which sites can access cookies, images, HTML and other code.

"We designed this feature so that consumers have a clear, straight forward, opt-in mechanism to enable a higher degree of control over sharing their browsing information AND websites can provide easy to use lists to manage their privacy as well as experience full-featured sites."

Sites will be able to create their own TPLs with details on external URLs that are necessary for full functionality, and users will be able to optionally accept or deny those TPLs. Microsoft is positioning it as an opt-in system, partly in response to a recent report by the FTC which criticized industry self-regulation on privacy and suggested that it had “failed to provide adequate and meaningful protection.” IE9 is scheduled to be released in early 2011. [Slashgear]

LEAKED: INTERNET EXPLORER 9 VIDEO

A video showing the latest iteration of Internet Explorer, 9, has been leaked.  The browser from Microsoft will enter beta testing next week.  It appears to have a sleeker more streamlined appearance with more screen space than previous incarnations of the browser.

The 1:17 video can be found on BoyGeniusReport.

RUMOR: MS EXPLORER 9 INTERFACE EXPOSED

According to Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet, she has seen the new interface of IE9.  The UI is not suppose to be unveiled for another month, but through a slip-up of Microsoft's Russian press site, it appears in all it's glory.

Through the slip-up and some translation Foley says the new layout consolidates existing functions for a larger, clearer less cluttered view of the internet.  The URL bar and search box have been consolidated and familiar 'Favorites' and  'Suggested Sites' are noticeably absent.

Foley also mentions a feature that will let users turn "recognized" and "protected" sites into web apps that can be launched from the taskbar..whatever that means.