Perhaps it’s the fault of some Russian undergraduate who’s high on weeds, or someone who linked a wrong picture. Bad timing indeed, as they’ve been screenshot by Mary-Jo Foley. What Mary screenshot is a picture of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 on its Russian site.

Now what has been seen cannot be unseen. Let’s check what’s new in that pictorial in comparison to IE 8. A new interface, template similar to Windows 7 design cues. There’s no more pesky menus, which in exchange are a few icons in the top right, which heavily resembles Google Chrome. Microsoft has also fusion both search and address bars into one.

Of course, given the earlier leak of screenshots, those menus could still just be hiding somewhere nearby, ready to spring at us. Sneaky Microsoft. Another similarity to Chrome (and Firefox and Safari) is the new ability to “tear off” tabs from one window and reposition them independently. We’ll see how closely the Beta aligns to what we see here when it debuts for real on in a few weeks’ time.

SOURCE via zdnet