It has been just three weeks since we released the IE9 PP6 at PDC on 10/28/2010. Our pattern has been to ship platform previews as we have new significant progress to share with developers. With Platform Preview 7 we have significant performance improvements that developers can start taking advantage of to deliver new types of scenarios and experiences. One area of improvement is in JavaScript performance via continued improvements to Chakra, Microsoft’s JavaScript engine.

With IE9 our focus has been on real-world performance. JavaScript is just one of several subsystems of a browser (like graphics rendering), but one that people focus on for performance. Performance involves other aspects as well: how well does the browser guard the user from slow add-ons, or from unreliable sites that crash? Enabling users to pin websites to the Windows taskbar means that users can go directly to sites without having to launch the browser and navigate. Taking advantage of the whole PC, and using the specialized graphics hardware and the many cores that modern PCs typically include, offers huge performance gains.

You can try out the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 7 here.

Thanks and stay awesome,

Kyle Price

@kypr8