Internet Explorer 10 platform preview is now available to download. The recently released Internet Explorer 9 has also just been pushed onto windows updates, so many people will be upgrading in the next few weeks, which means if your website isn't already IE9 compatible, and I've seen quite a few which don't work in IE9, then you had better start fixing your websites.

Internet Explorer 10 includes native HTML 5 support, and full support for CSS 3 including CSS gradients (which was a disappointment with IE9's CSS3 omissions). FF4, Chrome and IE10 preview all support multiple non linear CSS gradients, however the CSS code to generate gradients requires different code for -webkit-gradient (chrome) -moz-gradient (firefox), -o-gradient (opera) and -ms-gradient (IE). It would be much better if the gradient code was the same across all major browsers.

There is a new HTML 5 testdrive website available to try out some of your browsers HTML5 features. I tested the Paintball app with IE9 and firefox 4. IE9 completed the test in 11 seconds, firing over 400 balls per second. In contrast, FF4 did it in 129 seconds at a rate of 40 balls per second. This is mainly due to the GPU processing feature of IE9. I tried the same test using IE10 preview and it came out at about the same speed as IE9. Maze solver took 19 seconds in IE9, 18 seconds in IE10 and 107 seconds in FF4. Obviously, since these speed tests were all created by MS, it's no surprise that they work better in IE. Google chrome did slightly better than FF, but still way behind both IE9 and IE10 preview.

There is also a new version of the excellent IEtester (version 0.4.10) which now includes support for IE10 preview. You have to fiddle with the files a little bit to get it working, but its a relatively simple procedure. One word of advice though, in the IE10 setup instuctions for IEtester, it says that you have to copy a folder from C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer Platform Preview\ to C:\Program Files\Core Services\IETester\ie10, but if you are running 64bit windows, then the folders are C:\Program Files(x86)\Internet Explorer Platform Preview\ and C:\Program Files(x86)\Core Services\IETester\ie10 respectively.

The Beta release of IE10 is scheduled to be released around September 2011. Having tried out the preview, I can predict that it is quite likely that the schedule will not be far away from the actual Beta release date. It is already the fastest browser that I've ever used and capably handles just all HTML5 and CSS3 code that I've thrown at it so far.