Internet Explorer

Pros

• Runs on 32-bit computers without modification
• Allows users to pin sites to the taskbar
• Pauses and later resumes file downloads
• Offers enhanced tab management features
• Tells you which add-ons may be slowing it down

Cons

• May not support some popular websites
• Missing modern keyboard shortcuts and interface elements
• Lacks support for next generation security features

Internet Explorer 9 for 32-bit Windows Vista is a web browser package that's designed with mid-2000s era personal computers in mind. It doesn't include any 64-bit libraries that would cause it to throw out error messages when running on conventional PC architectures, so users can install it on many older devices without difficulty. It offers improved JavaScript performance over the original engine included with previous versions of IE, which means that it may still run somewhat faster even when used on dated hardware.

Retrocomputing enthusiasts and those who have to work with special hardware are probably the most interested in running a package like this today. If someone were restoring an original Windows 7 or Vista machine to pristine condition, then they'd need a period-accurate browser to make it run like it did back in 2011. Most users should find that they don't need to install any additional drivers to get machines of this era to work correctly.

Hardware drivers may be the only pieces of middleware necessary to get IE9 working as intended, and even then only if someone intends to use it as a full graphical browser. Systems bound to default emulated drivers are still able to start IE9 as a text browser that can potentially show at least some image-based content. The browser really shines, though, once you have actual hardware acceleration.

Unlike previous versions of Internet Explorer, IE9 offers full support for the audio and video tags provided under the HTML5 standard. This means that you can stream online content without having to rely on any sort of third-party helper application. IE9 can play online television channels and rewind video on nearly any site that supports it. The browser can also play many types of media formats directly inside of it. Podcast listeners and those who like to enjoy content streamed over an around-the-clock feed can do so in a separate tab while they surf.

That's partially due to the enhanced tab system, which enables users to tear off tabs and drag them around the desktop. You can push tabs back into a different browser window or send them off to exist as their own window. Frequent users of world band radio websites might want to keep one tab behind the others so they can stream their favorite content while they work or just surf the web.

Enhanced tab support integrates well with the native Windows Aero Snap feature, so users can enjoy a degree of fine control over where they position any tab on their desktop. Those who have decorative themes enabled will also get to enjoy that glass-like texture that fully compliant applications are known for.

Screen real estate is in high demand on older machines, which is why it's very helpful that IE9 includes support for a series of compact user interface elements that are more suitable for use with lower-end portable devices. Compact interfaces allow users to remove the separate search box that was found in previous versions of Internet Explorer. The developers also got rid of the old tab menu list, which took up a fair amount of space. Though the interface doesn't offer quite as many customization features as many modern browsers do, you might be surprised just how many options can you switch off to make it take up less space.

Perhaps no other type of computer software needs to be updated regularly as much as web browsers do, since changes to the hypertext standards as well as the constant risk of security threats usher in numerous changes on a regular basis. As a result, IE9 should never be used in a production environment where there's any concern about the possibility of cyberattacks. Only a few exceptions exist where it would be safe to do so in an actual commercial situation.

System administrators who deploy Microsoft Azure containers may be able to install some updates for IE9. The same goes for those who use Windows Server 2008 as part of a dedicated file transfer infrastructure. Other individuals shouldn't really be using IE0 on machines that are regularly browsing the open web. The risk of a drive-by infection is just too high, especially considering that Internet Explorer has always had something of a reputation for suffering from these kinds of attacks to begin with.

That being said, it's not likely that anyone who would download this package today would ever want to use it this way. IE9 lacks the kind of support for advanced HTML and WebAssembly features you'd need to work with today's hottest sites. It doesn't offer a full list of modern keyboard shortcuts and the interface is somewhat dated. However, those who want an authentic retro web browsing experience are actually going to consider all of these things more as features than bugs.

Specialists in the manufacturing and database fields may have to access a series of internal HTML pages that are stored across what's sometimes call an intranet. These aren't accessible from outside of said organization, which makes them far more secure than an untrusted web space. Nevertheless, groups that operate this kind of structure do sometimes need to rely on older machines, especially if they're installed as part of the control mechanism for a piece of equipment. System administrators who find themselves dealing with this sort of situation will definitely want to check out IE9.

Quirky features abound in this version of Internet Explorer, including the ability to pin sites to the taskbar itself. This may be useful for those who want to have a ready speed dial of web resources at hand whenever they're working inside of a full-screen window. Since these pinned links will always live next to the system tray, users won't have reopen their browser window just to click on one.

Download manager windows in IE9 have a few new features of their own. They include a security option that helps to reduce the risk that users would open a file that could potentially harm the computer they're on. Most people will probably never run into one of the warning messages that this feature can throw out unless they're downloading large amounts of executable software on a regular basis. Microsoft's bundled security subroutines tend to be very permissive otherwise, but it should prove to be at least relatively useful to have.

Pausing and resuming downloads is something that more people would be likely to rely on when it comes to regular daily usage. When you start downloading a file, IE9 will try to calculate the amount of time it will take to finish. Depending on how large it is, you'll see a small pause button next to the progress bar. Users are free to pause and resume them at all, though some remote servers may cancel a file transfer if too much time passes between the transmission of certain packets. That being said, this is more of a limitation of how some download services work as opposed to IE9 itself.

Parallel downloading isn't fully supported the way that it might be in a modern browser, but IE9 does have a fairly efficient interface for managing downloads. Since it can work with conventional helper applications to open files you might not even have to manage certain types of downloads in order to work with the resources that they point to. You might even want to open various resources directly in their own tabs if you're trying to keep your discrete download count low.

Eventually, users might grow tired of these features and figure they want to install something that will enhance the overall functionality of IE9. There's more than enough plugins to do that, but loading too many of these at once can start to slow down the system. Historically, this has been enough of a problem that the team behind Internet Explorer actually included an add-on performance advisor module in IE9 that helps to locate problematic plugins before they start to become a more serious issue.

Any add-on that's starting to contribute considerably to the amount of time it takes for IE9 to start will get immediately flagged. Whenever the software flags one of these plugins, it gives the user the opportunity to turn it off. Those who need to run some add-on in spite of the performance hit associated with it are free to ignore this warning. They can also remove it entirely, which is a good choice for any piece of software that's surplus to current demands.

Ironically, those who stop and take a closer look at everything that IE9 has to offer might not even necessarily ever have to download a plug-in to begin with. For instance, a few old-school features are still found in IE9 that might please those who are involved with professional typesetting. Open XML paper specification tools provide a high fidelity print pipeline that's especially geared toward those who have higher-end laser print devices. Any True Type font that's already installed on Windows can display text through IE9. Those who have all of the relevant foreign language packs installed can view material written in any language that they have support packages for. Open Type fonts are also given a degree of support, which is useful considering that many of the typefaces that ship with Microsoft Windows are actually bundled in this format.

Out of all of the tools that come slipstreamed into IE9, Chakra might very well be the most important. This is a specialized JavaScript rendering engine that runs interpreted programs in a background thread separate from the rest of the browser This thread is then run in parallel with the other tasks spawned by Internet Explorer. Whenever you open a new tab on a computer with multiple processor cores, the Chakra engine puts the JavaScript process on a separate core in order to take advantage of the speed boost you get from divvying up the different rendering chores.

Another core takes care of everything related to raw HTML in this case and any video processing is handled by the onboard graphics unit. While some older 32-bit machines might not be powerful enough to divide up these tasks, IE9 really will run well on those that can. According to Microsoft's own research, Chakra was capable of running some 10 times faster than their previous JavaScript rendering library. This is due in no small part to the fact that it eliminated dead code and optimizes everything on-the-fly so your machine doesn't have to run any instructions that aren't important to the task at hand.

Just-in-time compilation features make Chakra run even more fast in certain situations. By passing all instructions through a JIT parser, Chakra only ever has to compile and execute bytecode when necessary to perform a calculation that returns some result to the user or the web page itself. As a result, it ironically run around four times as fast as the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer 9. While this might sound paradoxical since a 64-bit data path should in theory be almost twice as fast as a 32-bit one, Microsoft's 64-bit implementation lacks this solution and it therefore runs much slower as a result. When IE9 was commonly used in the education market, many systems administrators would actually install this 32-bit package on 64-bit versions of the operating system to take advantage of the speed boost.

These days, it's unlikely that many people are going to want to do that if they even want to run a dated browser like IE9 at all. Nevertheless, those who do will find that it offers more than enough features to at least keep pace with more recent versions of what was once Microsoft's flagship web product.

Pros

• Runs on 32-bit computers without modification
• Allows users to pin sites to the taskbar
• Pauses and later resumes file downloads
• Offers enhanced tab management features
• Tells you which add-ons may be slowing it down

Cons

• May not support some popular websites
• Missing modern keyboard shortcuts and interface elements
• Lacks support for next generation security features