Faced with rival Firefox 4's record-setting launch, Microsoft this week argued that it's unfair to grade its Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) against Mozilla's newest browser.

"With Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, and Chrome 10 all hitting their final releases recently, drawing instant comparisons around downloads or initial usage is a natural temptation, but unfortunately you can't do it quite yet," said Ryan Gavin, senior director of IE marketing.

A day after IE9's March 14 launch, Microsoft touted the 2.3 million copies that had been downloaded in the first 24 hours. A week later, Mozilla shipped Firefox 4, logging 7.1 million downloads the first day, another 8.75 million the next. The latter exceeded the 2008 record of 8 million that Mozilla set with Firefox 3 in 2008 for the most software downloads in a 24-hour period.

More: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9215395/