To view the full article in its entirety, please visit eWeek: Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 Beta Downloaded 2 Million Times

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 beta was downloaded 2 million times during its first two days of release, according to the company. That falls in line with the company's other recent beta releases, which have attracted multimillion-user audiences. Those users' data is then used to fine-tune the final version of the software.

"In the first two days, over 2 million people worldwide downloaded IE9 Beta," Roger Capriotti, a product management lead for Internet Explorer, wrote in a Sept. 20 posting on The Windows Blog. "By comparison, when Internet Explorer 8 Beta launched in August 2008, we had 1.3 million downloads over the first five days."

IE 9 beta made its debut Sept. 15 in a San Francisco event. The new browser touts a streamlined user interface and features such as extensive support for HTML5. Microsoft designed the application to leverage the PC's underlying hardware, most notably its graphics processor, for accelerated graphics and video.

End-user features include a "Your Most Popular Sites" page, a "Manage Add-Ons" window that allows users to disable programs that slow down browser performance, the ability in Windows 7 to "tear off" browser tabs and pin them to the taskbar, and a discrete notification bar.

However, only Windows 7 and Windows Vista are IE 9 capable; the new browser was never designed to run on Windows XP, despite Microsoft's pledge to support the older operating system, still used by substantial numbers of consumers and businesses, through April 2014.