Microsoft unveiled their new Internet Explorer today, in beta form and it’s a definite leap above their prior 3 iterations of their browser easily. With HTML5 support, built-in integration with Windows 7 and 32-bit and 64-bit versions for Microsoft Vista and Windows 7 as well as support for hardware acceleration and a real clean interface, Internet Explorer 9 is nothing like the versions before it – it actually works well and lacks that sluggishness in the UI.

The improvements to Internet Explorer are as much about what you don’t see as what you do see. Internet Explorer 9 has a streamlined design, fewer dialog boxes to click through, more intuitive navigation, and many new features that speed up your web browsing experience. Features like Pinned Sites let you pin your favorite website directly to the taskbar for one-click access. Other features, like hardware acceleration, deliver an all-around faster browsing experience. With Internet Explorer 9, websites perform and feel more like the programs you use every day on your PC.

The bad part? If you’re still running Microsoft Windows XP, don’t even attempt it. And to be honest, the integration in Windows 7 is a tad bit more in-depth and seamless than with Windows Vista – but the experience is close enough between the two operating systems that I think it’s merely reflective on my like of Windows 7 and my intense dislike for Vista.

Seriously though? I’m impressed. It’s fast – I mean like Opera 10.6 fast – and the UI is not in the way at all. Combined with Adobe’s release today of their 64-bit Native Flash 10.1 Player nicknamed “Square” (download here), it seems like Internet Explorer might become an option once again for developers and people who have long abandoned Internet Explorer since the very early Mozilla/Opera days… like me.

Bravo Microsoft. You’ve all but shut up my typical hatred for all things Internet Explorer. Besides speed and support for new technologies though, let’s hope you’ve worked on the security of this browser just as well. That’s the other reason I disliked Internet Explorer.

[ Links: Beauty of the Web, Download IE9 Beta ]

With Apple Safari, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, alongside some other more esoteric web browsers, like the Mozilla based K-Meleon [ site here ] for instance, are great and it’s finally good to have options. But for another new player to enter the market, it better do something awesome or different.

Well, enter the Lunascape browser. It features not one, not two… but three browser engines in one. Lunascape includes the rendering engines for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome/Safari all in one browser with the ability to switch between the rendering engines and use Firefox or Internet Explorer add-ons alongside the other engines.

Lunascape, the Triple Engine browser, now supports Triple Add-ons and provides you with more advanced yet easy-to-use interfaces. We consider this as an important step towards the unified browsing platform. With Lunascape, you can have all you need to interact with the Web in a single platform that is personalized just for you.

Lunascape is now compatible with the expanding array of Firefox add-ons in addition to the already supported Internet Explorer add-ons and Lunascape plug-ins. Transferring your add-ons from Firefox 3.5 is very easy.

Sounds rather good despite being Windows only at the moment and having a slightly slower than I’d like interface. But this is beta software with improvements forthcoming.

[ Lunascape 6 Beta ]