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Now that the Internet Explorer 9 beta is available for download, I’ve seen a lot of people asking the question: “If I install the beta and don’t like it, can I easily remove it?”

The answer is YES – removing the beta is easy. I’ve detailed the steps below. But I should also say that I’ve been using the beta since it was released, and I love it! Betas usually aren’t for everyone, but I think this one is rock solid. I’m encouraging all of my family and friends (even the non-techies out there) to install it. Internet Explorer 9 is faster, cleaner, and introduces some really cool new features to make my web browsing experience better than ever. So far my favorite features are support for HTML5, “tear away” tabs (cool!), and built-in recommendations for making your browser faster (IE9 tells you which browser add-ons you might want to consider disabling due to performance reasons).

So to be clear… I have no plans to uninstall the Internet Explorer 9 beta. But if you have reservations about installing the beta, rest assured that it’s easy to uninstall if you don’t like it.

The steps below show how to uninstall the Internet Explorer 9 beta using Windows 7. The exact steps may differ slightly on other versions of Windows.

To uninstall the Internet Explorer 9 beta, start by opening the Control Panel:

Next, click on “Uninstall a program”: (on other versions of Windows this might be called “Add/Remove Programs”)

This opens the “Programs and Features” dialog. This is where the uninstallation process is a bit different from the way you uninstall other programs. Since Internet Explorer 9 beta gets installed as an update, you need to click on “View installed updates”:

Finally, select “Windows Internet Explorer 9” from this list and click “Uninstall” at the top of the Programs and Features dialog and follow the prompts:

That’s it! So go ahead – install the beta. As you’ve seen, if you don’t like it, you can easily remove it (but secretly, I think you’ll like it).

Brian Keller, co-author of Professional ALM with Visual Studio 2010

The Stack Overflow Blog: “The Unix world loves to take sides. I don’t have to blog about this; Freud already did, in 1930. He called it ‘the narcissism of minor differences’”

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn’t drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.

Area 51 is filling up with thousands of ideas for new Stack Exchange sites, and a pretty clear pattern has started to worry us: too many ridiculously niche proposals, overlapping proposals, and proposals that are already covered by an existing site.

Merging Season

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn’t drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.

We’ve been opening new Stack Exchanges left and right on a variety of topics. In almost every case, the Stack Exchange appears to duplicate the content of an existing community. For example, our WordPress answers site (now in beta) covers the exact same material as WordPress.org’s existing forums.

This is nothing new to us at Stack Overflow, which purported to cover the exact same material as hundreds (if not thousands) of other programming sites. There’s no rule that says that there needs to be exactly one Q&A website per topic.

There is, however, a compelling case for the Stack Exchange technology. WordPress.org’s forums don’t have voting, so you have to read through every answer and decide for yourself which one might solve your problem. They don’t have reputation, so there’s no way to see whether you’re getting an answer from someone who knows what they’re talking about. They don’t have wiki-style editing, so collaboration is impossible. You have to log on to ask or answer a question, so the burden of participation is higher. Stack Overflow is simply better than traditional forums, which is why it largely replaced proprietary forums. I remember hours of discussion with John Resig and the folks at jQuery who couldn’t decide whether to replace the jQuery Google Group with a forum or with a Stack Exchange. Ultimately it didn’t matter that much, because most of the jQuery Q&A activity happens on Stack Overflow anyway.

One day, the features that are standard on Stack Exchange will be copied everywhere. Until then, we’ll keep churning out new sites.

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn’t drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.

Want to know how to export mail from Gmail? Or delete your Facebook account? Or send giant files via email?

Well, the new Web Applications Stack Exchange is for you. It’s a part of the Stack Exchange network, so it has the clean, elegant design that made Stack Overflow a phenomenal success.

The newest member of the Stack Exchange Network is the first one to go through the community site-creation process called Area 51. There are more great sites in the pipeline, but they have to demonstrate that they can reach critical mass or we won’t create them.

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn’t drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.

“We decided that individually-branded sites felt more authentic and trustworthy. We thought that letting every Stack Exchange site have its own domain name, visual identity, logo, and brand would help the community feel more coherent. After all, nobody wants to say that they live in Housing Block 2938TC. They want to live in Colonial Manor. Never mind the connotation of, well, colonies.”

Domain Names

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn’t drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.

We launched three new Stack Exchange sites this week!

• Gaming
• Cooking
• Pro Webmasters

We’ll have three more for you next week, too.

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn’t drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.