In just a few days, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Beta has been downloaded a staggering 2 million times.

“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.

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.