Over 2 million people around the world downloaded the beta version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) 9 after just two days of the web browser being available.
Roger Capriotti, group product manager for IE 9 at Microsoft, said in a blog post on Monday that when IE 8 Beta launched in August 2008, the company recorded 1.3 million downloads over the first five days.
The IE 9 download site has seen 9 million visitors and over 26 million page views since it was made available last week. Capriotti said that Microsoft's IE developer site has had 4 million page views since last Wednesday.
"All in all, we are encouraged about the very early response to the IE9 release this past week," Capriotti said.
The web browser has seen its market share slip in the past three years. According to data from market watcher Net Applications, IE controlled 79.16 percent of the browser market in 2007, and currently has a 60.40 percent share.
Industry observers say that IE 9 may be Microsoft's last chance to try and stop other browsers from gaining ground.
Early reviews of IE 9 from InformationWeek said that this version of the world's most popular web browser is the best yet.
