Windows Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is the latest web browser of the IE browser series developed by Microsoft as the successor to Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). IE8 was released to web (RTM) on March 19, 2009 for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 in both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) build flavors, with exception of Windows 7, which bundled natively with IE8, although it’s possible to uninstall and remove IE8 from Windows 7.

Internet Explorer 8 includes many new features, including Suggested Sites, InPrivate (InPrivate Browsing, InPrivate Blocking and InPrivate Subscription) security mode aka “porn mode” or “steal privacy mode”, WebSlices which keeps track of snippets of entire page, Accelerators which allows user to invoke online service from any web page using only the mouse, domain highlighting, support for pasting multi-line URLs, SmartScreen Filter to block phishing sites, developer tools that allow HTML, CSS and JavaScript debugging directly from the browser. redesigned Favorites Bar, automatic crash recovery, IE7 compatibility mode, text reflows on zooming to avoid horizontal scrollbars, and etc. Most importantly, IE8 has significant performance improvements across the HTML parser, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) engine, mark-up tree manipulation as well as the JScript runtime, and the associated garbage collector, besides enhances RSS, Ajax and other web standards support and works more reliably.

Internet Explorer 8 final is been distributed and pushed to Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 systems still running Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) or Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) via Windows Update or Microsoft Update. The standalone setup installer of IE8 can also be downloaded form official IE8 homepage, or by using direct download links for English version below.

Direct Download Links to Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Setup Installer

IE8 for Windows XP 32-bit Edition: IE8-WindowsXP-x86-ENU.exe
IE8 for Windows Server 2003 32-bit Edition: IE8-WindowsServer2003-x86-ENU.exe
IE8 for Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition: IE8-WindowsServer2003-x64-ENU.exe
IE8 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 32-bit Edition: IE8-WindowsVista-x86-ENU.exe
IE8 for Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 64-bit Edition: IE8-WindowsVista-x64-ENU.exe

Starting from IE7, and similar in IE8, installation of Internet Explorer 8 no longer requires WGA genuine Windows validatoon. Microsoft also provides a few documents for end users, developers, IT professionals, businesses and enterprises to make better use of IE8.

Update: IE9 (Internet Explorer 9) now available.