Microsoft IE9 set for release today

Microsoft is preparing to release IE9 later today, as its browser faces greater competition in the marketplace than ever before.

The company has confirmed that the release version of IE9 will be available to download at 9pm Pacific time in the US, which equates to 4am Tuesday in the UK.

Microsoft has already hinted that the final code will contain some previously unseen features, but is playing its cards close to its chest until the official announcement at the South by South West (SXSW) Interactive festival in Austin, Texas.

V3.co.uk will have full details of the release and any new features as soon as Microsoft announces them, so check back to our main page for further information.

Today's release comes just a month after the release candidate (IE9 RC) was made publicly available, which Microsoft described at the time as feature complete.

The RC version itself added some new features, including Tracking Protection to stop user behaviour being reported to third-party sites, along with a boost in performance over the beta version, released last year.

Overall, IE9 has been designed for greater compatibility with standards such as HTML5 than earlier versions of its browser, while enhancing user privacy and security protection. It also adds a clean new user interface intended to give as much screen real estate to the web content as possible.

However, IE9 now faces stiff competition from rivals such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome, both of which tend to be updated much more frequently than IE.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is also abandoning users of older platforms, as the browser runs on Windows 7 and Vista SP2, but not Windows XP.

Although Microsoft still owns the lion's share of the browser market, it remains to be seen whether IE9 can stem the flow of users switching to rival software, especially Google Chrome.