As everyone knows, IE9 features a bevy of goodies over it’s predecessors. This, of course, includes security features. Microsoft Corporation developer evangelist Ramon Bosch said the new feature of the browser, SmartScreen download reputation, is known to have blocked three million malware threats every day since its launch and has so far blocked more than 125m phishing sites and 560m malware sites.

“In a market like Bahrain, where computers being compromised is one of the highest in the world, this will have an even greater advantage,” he said.

“The browser, that works with Windows 7 and Vista service pack two, delivers a fast, clean, trusted and interoperable online experience that takes full advantage of Windows 7, putting the focus on the sites and applications people care about,” he said.

“Hardware-accelerated graphics, newly-optimised document-object model and the new JavaScript engine, clean browser user interface, Pinned Sites, JumpLists, Windows Aero Snap, thumbnail preview controls, new tab page, One Box, and Address Bar Top Result are among the salient features of IE9.”

He said SmartScreen download reputation is a groundbreaking browser feature that uses reputation data to remove unnecessary warnings for well-known files, and show more severe warnings when the download is a higher risk of being malicious.

“This is the only browser that uses download reputation to help you make safety decisions.

“Download reputation is meant to fill the gap between attack and detection by warning you when a downloaded programme is uncommon and higher risk.

“A downloaded programme is first checked against our application reputation service. In the rare case that a download does not have positive reputation, you are warned and must choose an option from the ‘actions’ button found on the notification bar or in the download manager. This warning gives the user additional context on the risk of his activity and one can choose to proceed or not.”