Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 5

To go along with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Microsoft is releasing Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 5. While Internet Explorer 10’s radically redesigned interface has been available to developers for some time now, consumers will now be able to try Microsoft’s new Metro-influenced take on the browser when they install the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which is available now. As we already knew from previous developer previews of IE 10, the app will feature a redesigned “Metro” mode as well as the standard desktop experience, much like the rest of Windows 8. Microsoft is really playing up the full-screen experience with its new version of IE — it uses your entire screen for web pages, removing all navigation elements and tabs from your view unless you need to access them.

There doesn’t appear to be any major new consumer-facing features in this update to IE 10, but HTML5 support has been increased and overall performance continues to improve. Watching the video posted to Microsoft’s blog shows IE10 running a complex HTML5 animation at a significantly higher framerate (between 30 and 40 FPS) compared to the same animation in Chrome (which runs at about 5 FPS). Overall, it’s the same story Microsoft has been telling to developers — greatly increased HTML5 performance that exceeds that of the competition. We’ll see if that holds true by the time the final version of Windows 8 ships to consumers.