IE 10 For Windows 7 Preview Download

First Experience with IE10 on Windows 7 (Home Edition, 64 Bit)

I'm typing this post from my freshly installed IE10 on Windows 7. It looks like Microsoft really got strict with the Internet Explorer 10 team for browser upgrade. It seems like Microsoft has addressed almost all the issues users had reported through their earlier iterations (Windows 7, 8 and 9). IE 10 gives me that 'comfort' and a little 'wow' - which I haven't had in years using IE. I made a switch to Firefox when it came out and then to Chrome because of the simplicity of the browsers and ease of use - along with the speed. Internet Explorer lagged way behind in these factors until now and I never felt going back to IE after being a Chrome & Firefox user.

But Internet Explorer 10 may just change that and the browser is actually capable and speedier enough to be my first browser of choice. Note that these are just my first impressions after using the browser for the about 5 minutes, opening few websites that I regularly open.

Installing IE 10 on Windows 7 took longer because of the updates it downloaded during the install. After installation, the browser made the computer restart but after the setup was finished, IE 10 rocks! The browser loads very fast on my computer. I opened CrazyEngineers' front page first and even without previous cache, it loaded the site in just < 2 seconds. Opening CrazyEngineers Community page too took < 2 seconds and that's just enough information that tells me IE 10 is very good at rendering web pages.

Most of the Windows 7 machines won't be touch-screen enabled - so I can't test the touch optimizations incorporated in this browser. But in its bare-bones form, latest IE is quite fast. My next test was to open and run a YouTube video. I loaded the Gangnam Style original HD video and it too was rendered rapid fast - giving me the comfort I've enjoyed on Chrome so far.

Considering that this is still the preview version and the stable version may have more improvements, I'm happy with what Microsoft has achieved with it. I'm not sure if there are 'Firebug' and objection inspector like functionality inbuilt in IE, but it'd be a great thing to have.

Good job, Microsoft!

Thank you for the review. The overall design (especially drop down menus, checkboxes, radio buttons etc on default mode) is being appreciated all over the tech blogs. When people here IE, the mindset has become one that of - "Not even worth my time. Chrome does anything this does and way better." And the shifting back to IE (if it ever happens), will take a lot of time now. Chrome's add-ons and Omnibox are incomparable.
On SunSpider, scores are about 30% faster in IE. AcidTest scores 100/100. Futuremark's Peacekeeper says that IE only supports half the HTML5 that Chrome does and also scores about half as much as Chrome in the performance tests.
So, this looks definitely worth a try. 👍 Finally, Microsoft has made the users turn eyes to their browser.