Microsoft IE9 ad...relying on 1 1/2 year old quote.

So I get it: marketing folks don't know beans about browsers.  Still, I had to do a double-take when Microsoft began airing their new Internet Explorer 9 ads on TV, with a quote from the NY Times saying, "IE9 is amazingly fast!"

Well, turns out it was a quote from September 15, 2010 covering the beta version of IE9.

And the rest of the review goes on to say:

"Past versions of Internet Explorer always seemed bloated and slow, especially compared to Google‘s Chrome. But I’ve been using both for a week, and Microsoft’s browser keeps up with Chrome on my PC. "

In other words, it only just caught up to Chrome at the time.  Or did it?

Let's check out some tests from the past from Lifehacker, shall we?

Dec, 2010

IE9 more or less keeps up here.

IE9 pretty slow.

March, 2011

IE9 is the slowest to boot up.

IE9 smelling exhaust fumes.

Sept, 2011

5 seconds later...

Still behind the leader.

Feb, 2012

Still slower than Chrome.

And it's Chrome FTW!

So did you notice? IE9 is never faster than Chrome in cold boot-up or javascript rendering.

And don't forget that if you're using XP (Net Marketshare says 45% of desktops are), you can't run IE9, so in order to use HTML5, you have to switch.

Finally, I give you HTML5TEST results:

• Chrome 18.0.1025.54 - 377 points (best)
• Opera 11.61 - 329 points
• Firefox 10.0.2 - 317 points
• IE 9.0.8112.16421 - 141 points