The Russian press site of software giant Microsoft may have gotten a little overzealous today and posted a screen shot showing off the new UI for Internet Explorer 9. The preview builds have this far shown no evolution of the interface, but everyone was expecting some big changes come the beta. Immediately after the image was posted, it was pulled back down, but ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley managed to grab the image first.

What we're looking at here is a vastly different look for Microsoft's browser. Frankly, that's a good start as IE8 was starting to look ancient compared to other browsers. The window is much more minimalist. Toward the left there are back and forward buttons, then immediately to the right is a unified Search/URL bar. As we continue across the top of the window, we come upon the tab area, which is on the same level as the URL bar. We can assume this area will dynamically shrink the Search/URL bar as more tabs are open. It could get cluttered, but will offer more space for the web page.

There really isn't much more to the interface. The Home, Favorites, and Menu icons are over on the right, much like Chrome. The top of the window has the Windows Aero glass effect going on, also like Chrome. The Russian site also mentions "tear off tabs" which will be an extension of Aero Snap for viewing tabs in a split screen view. We're very interested to see how this browser looks when the bets is finally released. Sources have previously stated that should happen in September. What are your thoughts about the new Internet Explorer UI?

Image via ZDNet

Microsoft has been slowly shepherding Internet Explorer 9 toward a final release for a few months now. Today, the software giant is making the final preview build available for download. Come next month, the first beta should be out as well. This final preview build is intended for web designers and app developers to test with. IE9 is expected to pack a new JavaScript engine and full HTML5 support, which may affect how pages render.

Initial tests of the JavaScript engine have show it besting Safari in the SunSpider benchmarks. The more full featured Acid3 test is giving the most recent build high marks; 95 out of 100. This new version has increased support for hardware graphics acceleration as well. The UI is currently not final, but we may see some changes when the beat ships. Have you been trying the preview builds? Let us know how they've been working for you.