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Somewhere along the line, Microsoft went from being the 800-pound gorilla in the browser market to begging users to switch back to Internet Explorer. Now, Microsoft is running a "where's the love?" campaign to offer "free stuff" for users who download IE9. After all these years, hasn't Microsoft learned yet that it can't buy love? Is the company capable of competing on features at all?

Web developers who want see how their sites will look on the new version of IE 9 Mobile, which will soon ship along with Windows Phone "Mango," the next-generation update to the Windows Phone mobile OS, now have a new tool to do so. Today, Microsoft has launched Mobile Test Drive, a companion to the Internet Explorer Test Drive site for the desktop. The new site features a number of HTML5 and performance demos highlighting IE 9 Mobile's capabilities.

With over 7 million downloads since its release yesterday, Firefox 4 is out of the gate with some strong momentum, it seems.

That number certainly trounces the statistics from the first day of Internet Explorer 9's recent release, which hit a little over 2 million downloads.

Unlike the launch of IE9, yesterday's "download day" for Firefox 4 didn't have a lot of media publicity pushing users to download the latest browser. That hasn't seemed to stop users from upgrading.

If there was one thing that seemed clear from today's announcement of the Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate, it's that Microsoft is looking at Google's Chrome as its primary competitor in the browser market.

Did they come out and say this? Of course not, but it was more in what Microsoft didn't say today or at other recent IE9 events that really stood out. Not once did we hear the words "Mozilla" or "Firefox," but we surely heard "Chrome."

In September, Microsoft held a gala event to announce the beta release of Internet Explorer 9. There were bands, auditorium-size stage shows and hours on end of Internet Explorer goodness. Today, the company is holding a much more subdued event to announce the release of Internet Explorer 9's first release candidate and unveil many of the expected features.

In addition to the general announcement, we're expecting to see more in the way of IE9's hardware accelerated HTML5 graphics support, updates for developers and the much-discussed "Do Not Track" feature. We're live at the event so stay tuned and we'll bring you the news as it comes.

On the heels of an FTC report on consumer privacy and its recommendations for developing an online "Do Not Track" option, Microsoft has announced that IE9 will soon offer consumers "Tracking Protection." The new feature will be part of IE9's beta release early next year.

Tracking Protection will be an opt-in mechanism within the browser for users to identify and block certain forms of tracking. In addition Tracking Protection Lists will enable consumers to have more control over what third-party sites can track them while they're online - creating white lists, of sorts, for sites in which consumers don't mind sharing their data.

When we reported on Monday that IE9 outperformed other browsers in HTML5 compliance testing, the news was greeted with a mixture of surprise and skepticism.

And rightly so, perhaps, as Philippe Le Hégaret, the person who oversees the W3C's work on HTML5, has written a blog post clarifying the results of these tests, urging people to not draw any conclusions about "whether one browser or another is better."

Earlier this morning, Microsoft announced a new developer preview of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) during its PDC keynote. This new version is very similar to the first developer preview the company launched earlier this year, as it does not feature the full Chrome-like user interface Microsoft introduced with the first public beta of IE9. Instead, it is meant to give developers the ability to test their Web apps against the improved rendering engine's new capabilities like CSS3 2D transforms.

Even though the user interface is disabled by default, though, a small hack makes it possible to use the preview with a full user interface.

We were in San Francisco yesterday as Microsoft unveiled the latest beta of Internet Explorer 9 and, like many present, we were impressed. From everything we saw, it was all it was hyped up to be - visually stunning, fast and full-featured. Then came the one, big catch - it's only available for Windows 7.

The Register says that it got the official word from Microsoft and if Internet Explorer 9 is something you want, then Windows XP just isn't going to do.

Amid all the live music, lights and general regalia that is Microsoft releasing its beta (yes, beta) version of Internet Explorer 9, one demo has really stood out - Bing.

While there are more than 40 different partners here today - from Myspace to IMDB - the number two search engine showed off an IE9 integration that included features like background video and on-screen transitions that you just have to see.