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Why I use IE9

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The obvious answer to this question is I am an evangelist who works fro Microsoft and while that is true just bear with me for a paragraph or two.

You’ll probably like the speed and clean looks of this incarnation of IE, you might like the side by side comparison option by tearing off tabs, or the fact that you can make mini –apps out of your favourite sites by pinning them to the taskbar.  Actually I know these are popular because Simon’s one minute videos on these things have had a huge amount of hits.

However one of my favourite features isn’t actually new for IE9 (it came in with IE8) and you don’t even know your using it, namely SmartScreen..

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.. which checks pages you visit against a central database and blocks them, and has a similar setup for downloads. It’s basically crowd sourcing with added intelligence from Microsoft’s security teams so everybody wins who contributes to the program.  You can opt in or out by disabling it as indicated above and you can report bogus sites with it that may have been missed as well as identify false positives – so sites that are OK but have been identified previously as being malicious.

It’s not just me that thinks this is all pretty clever, the independent Online Trust Alliance (OTA) recognised IE8 with its 2010 Excellence in Online Trust Award a couple of weeks ago. I have to confess I am not exactly sure why SmartScreen is already better in IE8 than its equivalents in other browsers, but this fact has also been picked up by NSS Labs in its latest browser report (you’ll need to register but it’s free).

This will be further improved in IE9 with the download reputation notification that warns users about higher risk downloads. If like me you want enjoy the simplicity or relax with the security of IE9 the latest beta can be downloaded here.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 25, 2010
    >I am not exactly sure why SmartScreen is already better in IE8 Microsoft invests heavily in the data for our feature, sourcing data from many major data providers. Most compeitive products get data from only a single source and do not invest as much as Microsoft does in seeking out new malicious sites.

  • Anonymous
    October 26, 2010
    Eric Thanks for that.