Microsoft has a beta test version of Internet Explorer v. 9. available, and it is buggy. When I first installed it, it crashed on a regular basis. The solution appears to be to disable all of the add-ons that might have been present in IE 8. After doing this, the browser itself seems to work, but things like pop-up editing windows, and You-Tube don’t work.  Of interest is that installing the beta, seems to remove IE 8, so that you’re stuck with the buggy version 9, unless you use an alternative. Maybe my expectations are too high, but the beta seems to be pretty unstable.

Oops,   even with all the add-ins disabled it just crashed again.

For Windows browsing, I still like FireFox. Google Chrome appears to be a fast-gaining alternative which is available in a version for the Mac although on the Mac, so far, I’ve stuck with Safari which is also available on Windows.

With so much choice, it is refreshing to see the return of browsers to their rightful place as a lightweight application platform, as well as an information display utility. Perhaps this is the end of the trend by Microsoft to couple the browser so tightly to the underlying operating system, that you literally could never remove it entirely from a Windows installation. Internet Explorer has always been a major target for malware, trojans and viruses, and Microsoft never seemed to be capable of protecting users. The alternative browsers have flourished with attractive interfaces, standards compatibility, and effective countermeasures.