What I (don't) like in IE9

I’ve downloaded Internet Explorer 9 beta lately and must say that it’s quite improvement from version 8, but still not the browser for me. What do I like about it?

  1. It’s visibly faster than previous version, especially with aspx apps. We have proprietary application for time tracking at work and performance have risen significantly.
  2. Add-ons are finally here! Well, I haven’t seen any however;) But at least there is mechanism to install and manage them, may be a step in the right direction as add-ons are main power of FF.
  3. You can check load time of your add-ons (and level of usage). Quite useful, you can now check how much Google Toolbar is slowing start of your browser and if you’re really using it so often, then decide if you really need it.
    add-ons management
  4. Menu has been shrunk to three small icons.
    icons IE9
    It’s far more aesthetic than menu from IE8 and takes less space on screen, so you can use it for tabs.
    menu IE8
  5. Generally entire IE9 is now more minimalistic (probably because new Firefox will be as well). So for people who like their tools heavy with buttons (like on the picture below) it’ll be disappointment:)
    IE mess

But there are also things I don’t like:

  1. There is still no X button on all tabs, so you can quickly close them. X appears only on currently active tab, so to close other one, you must first click it to become active and them click X. Yes, I know that you can use mouse middle button to do so and then there is no problem, but I don’t like to use this button and I find this functionality very annoying.
    Tabs with no X
  2. New system of notifications. Well, to be honest I partially find it better than in IE8, but only if there is message about file download. When I see something like on the picture below (and you see it quite often), I’m starting to be really mad. And yes, I was too lazy to search the options and disable these notifications.
    Notifications

As you can see there is more pros than cons for new browser from Microsoft, but I would rather not switch from FF. Why? Because it’s still IE, still clumsy, it would probably take ages (if ever) till comparable amount of add-ons as for FF will be available. One of my favorite add-ons (Sync) will never appear on IE, but maybe MS will introduce their own solution. But the main reason is that finally OWA 2010 is acting properly on Firefox, so who needs Internet Explorer:) However, current users of IE8 would be happy with IE9.