The release on Monday of Internet Explorer 9 by Microsoft, was downloaded just over 2.35 million times in the first 24 hours, according to Microsoft. The beta version of the browser was downloaded “just” 1 million times during its first day of availability.

Compared to other web browsers, the downloads of IE9 are not quite as impressive. In just the first few hours of availability, Firefox 3.5 saw more than 1 million downloads in 2009. By the end of the first 24 hours the year before, Firefox 3.0 had been downloaded a total of 8 million times according to Mozilla sources.

“We would like to thank everyone around the world for downloading IE9 and for the enthusiastic reception,” Ryan Gavin, Microsoft’s senior developer of Internet Explorer, wrote on the Microsoft blog.

The lastest version from Internet Explorer includes HTML5, an improved UI and greater control over data prtoection and the storage of surfing trends (cookies etc). It is available for download at BeautyoftheWeb.com.

IE 9 will soon face greater competition from Firefox, the beta version of Firefox 4 has been widely applauded with a final realeas due on the 22nd of March 2011.