14 DAY TRIAL // Internet Explorer 9 has certainly blown away all Beta records in terms of the sheer volume of downloads, but the next generation of IE doesn’t show any signs of stopping. Just 10 days after it announced that IE9 Beta downloads have passed the 23 million downloads milestone, Microsoft reveals that the browser has reached a new apex.
Users worldwide downloaded IE9 Beta no less than 2 million times since the end of January 2011, pushing the total number of downloads to more than 25 million, which is nothing short of impressive, especially considering that Internet Explorer 9 was still in Beta.
“We’ve seen a fantastic reaction to the IE9 Platform Previews, and we’ve had over 25 million downloads of the IE9 Beta itself making it our fastest adopted browser beta of all time,” revealed Ryan Gavin, Senior Director of IE.
“IE9 Beta has been downloaded about 1.5 times more than IE8 Beta over the same time period. When adjusted for the installed base of PCs that can run IE9, IE9 Beta has actually been downloaded at a rate of almost 3 times that of IE8 Beta.”
And this trend is bound to accelerate now that Microsoft made available for download the Release Candidate of IE9.
IE9 RC Build 9.0.8080.16413 has been released to the public yesterday, February 10, 2011 and is the last development milestone of Internet Explorer 9 before the final version will be provided.
“The development process of IE9 has focused on building the best experience of the Web on Windows,” revealed Dean Hachamovitch, Corporate Vice President, Internet Explorer.
“Our approach to building a faster Web-browsing platform involves harnessing more of the PC’s hardware for Web pages. Our approach to Web standards and interoperability involves real-world developer scenarios and modern software engineering practices like comprehensive test suites.
“Our approach to designing a clean, site-centric Web browsing experience involves using everything available around the browser that people use regularly, so people can now pin sites to the Windows taskbar and Web sites can program taskbar jump lists.
“Our approach to building a safer, more trustworthy browser involves effective consumer protections from real-world risks, like programs they download or sites that might unexpectedly track them.
“All of these things taken together have resulted in the fastest adopted beta in IE history, with over 25 million downloads to date.”
IE9 RC Supports HTML5 Geolocation, Advances Interoperability
IE9 Privacy and Security Evolve with the RC, Tracking Protection Now Available
IE9 RC Performance Superior to IE9 Beta, to All Rival Browsers
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Release Candidate (RC) Build 9.0.8080.16413 is available for download here.