As of 21:00 PST (9:00pm PST), Internet Explorer 9 is now available for you to download and enjoy.

Over the last year, Microsoft has been releasing previews of some of the features destined for its next browser release, Internet Explorer 9. In September 2010 Microsoft then released a fully usable beta followed in February 2011 by a near-final “Release Candidate”.

Tonight’s release of IE9 marks Microsoft’s return as a true competitor in the browser marketplace – something that many thought would never happen. And not only has Microsoft released a truly competitive browser, but they’ve actually leapfrogged Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Opera’s browsers.More...

It’s gotta be Google’s Chrome, right?

Wrong.

Okay, so it must be Mozilla’s Firefox?

Nope!

Ooh ooh, I know, Apple’s Safari – yayyyyy … Apple FTW!

Nuh huh! Wrong again.

Erm … Opera?

Nope.

I give up. Who is it?

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9!!

[cue sound of chins hitting the floor echoing all across the internet!]

The W3C publishes the latest HTML5 test results across the most prevalent browsers. Top of the stack right now is IE9. Of course, the browser at the top of the stack is likely to change over time the browser vendors continue to improve their browsers and (hopefully) converge on 100% test coverage and compliance.

But what these results show VERY clearly is that Microsoft is absolutely dead serious about its commitment to making IE9 the premier web browser for Windows.

Long gone are the days of browser vendor lock-in. Today’s web browser market is all about nose-to-nose open and direct competition with one another and rigid compliance to published and developing standards.

We’re about to enter a whole new era of web development. Not only will browser compatibility issues largely cease to be an issue, but we’ll have at our disposal the kinds of markup, scripting and support features that we’d only have been able to dream of just 5-6 years ago.