Microsoft announced earlier today on the Windows Team Blog that Internet Explorer 9 will officially launch (stable) on March 14th at 9 p.m. PT, or midnight of March 15th ET. Don't ask, because I'm also confused as to why they would choose a conflicting time.

Still, the browser is absolutely worth it. It's perhaps Microsoft's first version of Internet Explorer that can actually compete with other browsers. It has a clean, minimalistic design that puts the focus on the web page content, it has enhanced security features, and most importantly -- time to load web pages is no longer equivalent to that of an entire glacier melting.

Since the beta release back in September 2010, Microsoft has made incremental improvements to the browser up until the big finish on March 14th (or 15th). Back at its launch, I posted my first impressions of the browser that for the most part are still valid today.