Internet Explorer 9 Beta's Dramatic New Look Revealed

From DailyTech: With its browser market share at a decade-low, Microsoft has a tall task awaiting it with the release of Internet Explorer 9. The good news is that Microsoft appears to be rising to the occasion. It's currently four developer previews in, and our early testing indicates that it's in a dead heat speedwise with Mozilla's Firefox 4 betas (thanks to its new Javascript engine "Chakra").

In a month where Apple looks to release new iPods and potentially other products, Microsoft's Internet Explorer event on September 15 will likely go largely overlooked. But that event should prove a critical step for the company, as it is anticipated to formerly unveil the first beta of IE 9.

What no one knew -- until now – was what that beta would look like. Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet was cleverly poking around on Microsoft's foreign webpages and came across screenshots of what may be the new IE 9 beta, accidentally leaked by Microsoft Russia.

If this is indeed the look of the beta, Microsoft is going for an even more aggressively minimalist look than Mozilla's Firefox 4. The URL bar, forward/backward buttons, and tabs have all been merged into a single row (this occupies two rows in Firefox 4) and multiple page elements have "been consolidated into one" (according to the translated Russian text corresponding to the image).

"Favorites", "Suggested Sites", and "Get More Add-ons" – features found in IE 8 -- have all been presumably moved to subtler locations. All this reorganization is geared at providing "more room for the (Web) site itself", according to Microsoft.

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