“The initial reaction has been pretty overwhelming, and we are very humbled by the response our customers have had.  In first two days, over 2 million people worldwide downloaded IE9 Beta” wrote Microsoft’s Roger Capriotti.

This compares with only 1.3 million downloads of IE8 Beta in 5 days back in August 2008.

Microsoft is very pleased with the response so far. “We are encouraged about the very early response to the IE9 release this past week, namely because it signals that the emphasis on making websites shine through Windows is resonating.”

Microsoft is yet to announce a release day for the final version of Internet Explorer 9.

The article explains the origins of the logo, and shows development throughout the life cycle of creating the now infamous browser logo.

The below picture really sums it up.

The full article can be read on the IEBlog.

Microsoft have released Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Beta to the public, at a launch event during the “Beauty of the Web” keynote at the San Francisco Design Center.

Microsoft also hosted a launch event in the UK, teaming up with the Gorillaz to launch the browser.

IE9 includes many changes over its predecessor, including a new user interface, support for some HTML5 and CSS3 tags, faster rendering and JavaScript engine, hardware accelerated rendering, and many more.

On opening the browser, it will also prompt users to disable slow loading plugins, making the browser fly. Early benchmarks look very promising, with speeds passing that of Firefox 3.6. Both Engadget and Neowin have performed some benchmark testing.

Internet Explorer 9 Beta is available to download now for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users.

Microsoft’s Russian Press site has released a screenshot of the upcoming user interface scheduled to make an appearance in Internet Explorer 9 Beta.

Soon after, the screenshot was pulled indicating it is likely real, but Microsoft journalist Jo Foley managed to save the image before it was removed.

New features are set to include a combined URL and search bar, tear-off tabs, and a consolidated menu.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta will be released on September 15th during a launch event in San Francisco.

Microsoft has released a fourth and final platform preview release of Internet Explorer 9.

This latest release scores 95/100 in the Acid3 test, compared to the first platform preview which only scored 55/100. For comparison, Firefox 3.6 scores 94/100.

Also new in this release is full support for hardware accelerated HTML5, improved SVG support, and improved JavaScript performance. A more detailed list of changes can be found in the IEBlog.

A public beta is widely expected in September 2010.

The updated preview release includes support for the HTML5 video tag, canvas tag support and embedded fonts using the WOFF standard.

“The third Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9, available now, continues the deep work around hardware acceleration to enable the same standards-based markup to run faster. This is the latest instalment of the rhythm we started in March, delivering platform preview releases approximately every eight weeks and listening to developers. You’ll see more performance, same markup, and hardware accelerated HTML5″ wrote Dean Hachamovitch
General Manager, Internet Explorer.

This latest release performs well in benchmarks, now scoring 83/100 in the Acid3 test, up from 68/100 in the last platform preview. SunSpider testing shows the browser is almost on par with the recently released Safari 5, which our own testing confirmed.

Willing testers can check out the IE9 Platform Preview release from the Test Drive IE website.

In response to the recent release of Safari 5, Microsoft has released a video demonstrating the performance difference between the hardware acceleration found in Internet Explorer 9 and Safari 5.

“Since the release of the first Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview at MIX back in March and the second in May, we’ve shown a lot of demos of IE9 with other browsers. Today, Apple announced and released Safari 5. We figured we would show IE9 and Safari 5 together running some of the demos from the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive website. Watch the Frames Per Second (FPS) Counter” wrote Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc.

From the video it’s clear that IE9 is a long way ahead of Safari 5, with the first benchmark showing IE9 scoring an impressive 50 frames per second, while Safari 5 only manages 9.

LeBlanc also revealed that IE9 Developer Preview has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times. Rumors are also appearing suggesting we may see a beta release very soon. We will keep you updated.

Microsoft is still hard at work on Internet Explorer 9, and today provided an updated on how they are going with the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3) web standards.

Latest results show that IE9 is now fully HTML5 standards compliant.

Microsoft conducted W3C Web Standards tests for HTML5, SVG 1.1 2nd edition, CSS3 media queries, CSS3 borders & backgrounds, CSS3 selectors, DOM level 3 core, DOM level 3 events and DOM level 2 style across a variety of browsers.

These browsers included IE9 May 2010 Preview, Firefox 3.6.3, Opera 10.52, Apple Safari 4.05, and Google Chrome 4.1 all running on Windows. The results are very promising for IE9.

A preview IE9 build can be downloaded from the IE Test Drive website.

“CSS3 Selectors enable complex styling of webpages using simpler CSS and less script than previously possible” wrote Newman.

“Our goal is to enable new selectors in your webpages in a way that lets the same markup work across browsers [...] IE9 now passes 100% of test cases on css3.info, 100% of the W3C CSS3 Selectors Test Suite, and Acid3 tests 34 through 37 and 39 through 44″ continued Newman.

Interested users can test out a developer preview of Internet Explorer 9 by downloading it from the test drive site.

A full list of CSS3 selectors supported by Internet Explorer 9 can be found after the break.

Internet Explorer 9 is set to include support for the following selectors:

• E:root
• E:nth-child(n)
• E:nth-last-child(n)
• E:nth-of-type(n)
• E:nth-last-of-type(n)
• E:last-child
• E:first-of-type
• E:last-of-type
• E:only-child
• E:only-of-type
• E:only-child
• E:only-of-type
• E:empty
• E:target
• E:enabled
• E:disabled
• E:checked
• E:indeterminate
• E:not(s)
• ::selection

“Today’s release builds on the first Platform Preview, delivering improvements to IE9’s performance, support for standards, and hardware acceleration of HTML5.  We’ve also updated the test drive site with a new set of developer samples to show what developers can do with GPU-powered HTML5. As part of our commitment to enabling developers to use the Same Markup – the same HTML, CSS, and script – on the web, we have contributed many new tests to the W3C for HTML5, as well as CSS3 Media Queries and DOM. The Developer Tools in this preview include some new features to make finding and fixing markup issues easier” wrote Internet Explorer’s General Manager Dean Hachamovitch.

Microsoft testing shows the browser is also slightly faster in SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test then the previous preview release, with the browser still being faster than Firefox 3.6 and Firefox.Next builds.

The release come days after figures show that Internet Explorer’s market share has dropped below the 60% mark for the first time since late 1998.

Windows users wanting to test Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview #2 can download the browser from ietestdrive.com.