Internet Explorer 9 Beta expected in September, screenshots leak now
If for whatever reason the holy trifecta of Chrome, Firefox and Safari just can't satisfy your browsing needs, you'll be relieved to hear that Microsoft is on track to release a public Beta version of its latest browser as soon as a month from now. A great many hopes and enhancements are folded into this next Internet Explorer, but for the moment all we've got are pictures of its download manager and a familiar "most popular sites" starting page. You won't find many shocks in either, they're pretty much par for the modern browser course, with the former allowing you to search your download library and the latter sorting your favorite web addresses by the number of times you've visited them. Microsoft's clearly keeping up with the Chromeses here, but what we really want to see is some more innovation and adventure in its designs -- let's hope the Beta lets us play with more fresh stuff than just an ever so slightly different IE icon (don't worry, it's still cornflower blue).
