Internet Explorer 8 Officially Launches

ie8

More than a year after unveiling a beta version of IE8, Microsoft will make a final release of the browser available to download from 4pm.

Microsoft will also distribute Internet Explorer 8 as an update to IE7 via an upcoming Automatic Update.

Leila Martine at Microsoft said the company was confident that surfers who may have turned their back on IE in favour of other browsers such as Firefox would be impressed with IE8′s features, reliability and security.

New features include InPrivate Browsing, which lets you browse the web without IE8 keeping a history of sites visted and WebSlices, a tool that keeps you updated about a particular item on a web page.

Microsoft said its speed tests, comparing IE8 with Chrome and Firefox 3 on 25 of the most commonly visited websites, showed IE8 to be the fastest.

Posted on March 19, 2009 | Filed Under Tech