Microsoft made public the first release candidate (RC1) of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) yesterday. IE8 RC1 includes many new features, enhancements and bugfixes over the previously released builds. If you are willing to give this browser a go, it can now be downloaded free of charge for Windows XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 platforms.
I’ve only had little time to play with IE8 RC1 but it definitely looks like an improvement over Beta 2. Faster loading times, Firefox like address bar, InPrivate filtering and loads of other security and reliability enhancements probably make IE8 RC1 the best Internet Explorer build yet to be released. However there is nothing revolutionary introduced in this release that can make me give up FireFox 3 and become an IE user :P
Download
We have included direct download links for several versions of the browser below. Links point to the English version of Standalone, offline installer of IE8 RC1. All of these downloads are from official Microsoft servers – no 3rd party links have been included.
[Click Here] to download Internet Explorer 8 RC1 for Windows XP 32-bit
[Click Here] to download Internet Explorer 8 RC1 for Windows XP Professional 64-bit and Windows Server 2003 SP2 64-bit
[Click Here] to download Internet Explorer 8 RC 1 for Windows Vista 32-bit and Windows Server 2008 32-bit
[Click Here] to download Internet Explorer 8 RC1 for Windows Vista 64-bit and Windows Server 2008 64-bit
[Click Here] to download Internet Explorer 8 RC1 for Windows Server 2003 SP2 32-bit
