The top ten Internet Explorer 9 Pinned Sites

One of Internet Explorer 9’s best features is its concept of the Pinned Site. At its simplest, this could be a favourite website sitting on the taskbar in the form of a large icon. Press it and IE9 will launch, going straight to your chosen site and adopting its look and feel by switching colours.

To see what we mean, look at the example below: on the left you'll see PC Pro as viewed in IE9 as a "normal" site, and on the right you'll see how it looks if we add it as a Pinned Site. So, note that the PC Pro "favicon" is now sitting to the left of the Back/Forward buttons, which have also inherited the favicon's key colours.

It’s incredibly simple to set up too: launch IE9, head to the site, then drag the open tab down to the taskbar. And that really is it.

Microsoft has provided tools that allow website developers to produce “enhanced” Pinned Sites that offer extra features. For example, Facebook can alert you if you have a new message, while online radio station Jango lets you instantly skip and rate tracks via its thumbnail playback controls.

Together with the fact that those sites now sit as an icon in your toolbar, it almost turns them into apps. Take the National Rail Pinned Site: once set up, it instantly shows the latest departures from your chosen home station. And that’s with live updates for delays and platform numbers – who needs a printed timetable?

Over time, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if the difference between apps and sites becomes ever fuzzier, and Pinned Sites are arguably the first step. Here, we select our ten favourites.

10. Facebook

At first the Facebook Pinned Site integration doesn’t look too stunning: you get links to News, Messages, Events and Friends, which are handy but won’t tempt most people away from simply pressing the familiar “f” logo when they want to check in. What’s cleverer is that notifications appear in the taskbar (see the red star above), so you don’t need to keep Facebook open if you’re waiting on someone to respond to a message.

9. Your company intranet

Microsoft hasn’t done anything special to integrate intranets, but if you’re an IT manager then it’s well worth pinning your company intranet to your users’ taskbar. Or it could be as simple as adding the phone list.

The only annoyance is that, if your intranet doesn’t have its own favicon (that is, the small icon that’s associated with a modern website, and is found at the far left of the address bar), then you’ll be stuck with the Internet Explorer icon sitting on your taskbar. And if you haven’t created a favicon for your intranet, then head to this Microsoft site for more information. 

8. ESPN

ESPN hasn’t done anything especially clever with its Pinned Site integration, but it does allow you to instantly see what’s hot in the world of sport thanks to its topical choice of Quick Links: this could be anything from the current England test match to live commentary to a pre-recorded documentary. Or you can jump to one of the ever-present top sports, such as football and cricket.

7. Jango

Set Jango as one of your Pinned Sites and you’ll be able to not only jump straight to your favoured radio station (in a similar way to last.fm, it builds stations around your favourite artists) but also pause tracks, skip them and vote “Love It!” or “Don’t Like It!” thanks to the transport controls. These appear if you hover on the icon whilst a track is playing, in much the same way as Windows Media Player.

6. Hotmail

The biggest benefit of pinning Hotmail to your taskbar is that it flashes up when a new message arrives, so there’s no need to keep the window open in the background. Some might also appreciate the shortcuts via the Jump Lists: click on Send Mail, for example, and a dialog will appear ready and waiting for you to start typing your message. Shortcuts to your inbox, calendar and contacts lists could also come in handy.

5. IMDb

IMDb is a UK success: what started off as a movie database website that now boasts 100 million unique visitors per month. But it’s now much more than a database, with a new HD Trailer Gallery that takes full advantage of HTML5 and Internet Explorer 9’s hardware acceleration. Other signs of its greater aspirations come from the jumplist options: right-click and you can instantly find out what films are showing near you, or head straight to see this week’s DVD and Blu-ray releases. Or, naturally, look up a movie or star on the database that made IMDb famous.

4. Twitter

It’s no surprise that Microsoft has teamed up with Twitter to create a Pinned Site, and the jumplist shortcuts give quick access to messages, mentions, favourite tweets and search, plus the ability to create a new tweet in an instant. You also receive a notification on the taskbar icon if someone mentions you or replies to one of your tweets.

3. The Killers

Even if you aren’t a fan of The Killers then this site is well worth a visit, packed as it is with HTML5 enhancements. The web designers have clearly had a lot of fun with the design, with a rolling landscape that lets you click on a ramshackle coach, for instance, to see upcoming tour dates. Or you can just jump straight to the huge selection of videos (plus news, tour dates, photos and album details) from the Pinned Site shortcut.

2. Huffington Post US

The US version of The Huffington Post has some simple but excellent integration via its Pinned Site icon: right-click and you’ll see all the big, breaking stories at the top, while just below (underneath the Tasks heading) you’ll find the most important sections of the site. So, if you simply want to head to the entertainment pages then you’re just one click away. Disappointingly, the UK version of the site doesn’t have this level of integration, and during our testing the favicon wasn’t working either.

1. National Rail Enquiries

Checking train times is a common task for most rail commuters, and National Rail has made it refreshingly easy with its excellent Pinned Site. Right-click on the taskbar icon and you can jump to live arrivals and departures for your favourite stations; adding them is as straightforward as you’d expect. It’s quick, simple and nicely implemented with smooth animations.