Microsoft offering free stuff with Internet Explorer 9 holiday downloads

Looks like Microsoft has started a campaign in time for the holiday season to entice users to download and install the company’s Internet Explorer 9 browser. In fact, the holiday campaign offers prospective IE downloaders free music, movies, and other stuff.

“Happy Holidays from Internet Explorer 9. To show you our love this season, we got you a whole lotta free music, movies and other awesome stuff. Unwrap and enjoy your holiday gifts!” states the Internet Explorer 9 website.

Microsoft seems to be running this campaign for the upcoming holiday season. The freebies include three free months of Slacker Premium Radio, three free months of AOL radio, one free month to Grooveshark plus, one free month to Hulu Plus, One free movie in your Flixster movie locker, one free $5 movie ticket from Fandango, $5 off Live Nation tickets from Ticketmaster, one free month of Vimeo, and one free month of Pandora.

Some of these freebies do not take effect until certain times. For example, the Ticketmaster freebie will be available on the 1st of December. Check out the Internet Explorer 9 holiday page to see more.

This campaign is only valid in the United States and no exact timeline was given as to when it will end, but we are thinking around Christmas.

In related news, Microsoft has described Internet Explorer 9 as a “Treat for Developers.” Roger Capriotti from the IE team is predicting, rightfully so, that IE9 will be the second most used modern browser behind IE8. With month-to-month for IE9 growth of browser market share, such prediction is not too far from the realm of reality.