Microsoft announced today the latest iteration of their web browser Internet Explorer 9 has been downloaded more than 20 million times, although at this stage it's unclear whether or not this figure is unique downloads or includes multiple downloads by the same person.
In a post on the official Windows Team blog earlier today to celebrate the new year, Microsoft's Roger Capriotti, Director of Internet Explorer Product Marketing, called the amount of downloads of Internet Explorer (IE) 9 "overwhelming".
"We launched IE9 in 2010, and the response to the IE9 Beta launch on September 15th has been overwhelming," Capriotti wrote.
"Combined with the near half-percent of users of newly introduced IE9 Beta, the modern Internet Explorer browsers now account for 34.07% of users worldwide according to Net Applications."
Despite still being a beta release -- meaning it's still not ready for a full public launch and is not the final version -- Internet Explorer 9 is now used by approximately 0.46% of all internet users adding a small but welcome boost to IE's market share which has been on a downwards turn for a number of months since rivals, including Google Chrome have become more popular with internet users.
In news which will certainly brighten the day for those campaigning for all users to be migrated from Internet Explorer 6 to a newer edition of Internet Explorer, Capriotti has confirmed just 13.81% of all internet users worldwide now use the outdated version, which first shipped in 2001.
New features in Internet Explorer 9 include performance enhancements, an all-new lightweight design featuring a new downloads manager and tab page, and amongst other things basic CSS3 support and better security features.
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