Users who do not want to wait can download the English 32-bit and 64-bit web installers by following the links below:

Windows 7

• Internet Explorer 9 32-bit Web Installer [link]
• Internet Explorer 9 64-bit Web Installer [link]

Windows Vista

• Internet Explorer 9 32-bit Web Installer [link]
• Internet Explorer 9 64-bit Web Installer [link]

Users who want to download different language editions need to alter the three letter language code at the end of the file name, for instance from enu to esn for Spanish, ptb for Portuguese or deu for German.

There does not seem to be a need to uninstall a beta version prior to installing the release candidate. An upgrade worked fine on a Windows 7 test system that had the latest beta installed.

Please note that the installation requires a restart of the computer system.

So what’s new in Internet Explorer 9 RC? Microsoft has overhauled the user interface slightly. Tabs have been improved not only visually but also with an option to move them below the address bar of the web browser.

Both tracking protection and ActiveX filtering have been added to Internet Explorer 9 RC. The two features are available under Tools > Safety.

Tracking Protection can be used to automatically block contents on websites that are used to track the user. This can be maps, advertisements and other elements that have been designed for that purpose.

Tracking Protection is an opt-in feature that users need to activate individually before it can protect from tracking related scripts.

ActiveX filtering is another opt-in feature, this time however without configuration screen. It can be activated under Tools > Safety and acts as a global filter. There does not seem to be an option to turn it on or off selectively.

Microsoft made progress compatibility-wise. The Acid 3 test is now showing a result of 95/100, the HTML5 test a score of 116 / 300 and 5 bonus points. This is still far away from browsers such as Google Chrome who score more than twice the points:

• Internet Explorer 9 RC 116+5 / 300
• Google Chrome 10 244+13 / 300
• Opera 11.01 177+7 / 300
• Firefox 4 Pre-Beta 12 207+8 / 300

No official release notes have been posted yet, we keep you updated on that and update the article as soon as the offline installers become available as well.

Internet Explorer 9 is expected to be released at Mix 11 which takes place between April 12 and 14 in Las Vegas.

Update: The official release notes are now available. (thanks lohhw3)

Update 2: Offline installers have been posted (thanks lohhw3). Change the language code to download the browser in a different language.

• Win7 x86: http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/A/5/2A50895F-4BF1-4A68-837B-506AE8301E9D/IE9-Windows7-x86-enu.exe
• Win7 x64: http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/1/5/C154F0CF-4BC8-454D-A4E8-314682963937/IE9-Windows7-x64-enu.exe
• Vista x86: http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/1/7/C1754A31-1B2B-44F6-A51F-E7B2BB2E750E/IE9-WindowsVista-x86-enu.exe
• Vista x64: http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/7/7/377E5AD2-756A-4FFF-982F-78D5B411EC74/IE9-WindowsVista-x64-enu.exe

Update 3: Check out Windows 7 News for a list of all web and offline installers.

Users who cannot wait until Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 RC1 is officially released can download the setup routine directly from Mediafire (32-bit XP, 32-bit Vista) thanks to Devrexter who posted the links on his website.

The download will install the setup for Internet Explorer 8 RC1 which will remove prior versions of Internet Explorer 8 from the system before starting the installation. It will also download and use Microsoft’s Malware tool to check the system for malware.

Internet Explorer will be ready after one or two system restarts. It should be noted that the build number of the Internet Explorer 8 RC1 download is lower than the build number of the release that shipped with the Windows 7 Beta.

Update:

Official Internet Explorer 8 RC1 download links are up

Windows XP 32-bit link
Windows XP 64-bit link
Windows Server 2003 32-bit link
Windows Server 2003 64-bit link
Windows Vista 32-bit link
Windows Vista 64-bit link
Windows Server 2008 32-bit link
Windows Server 2008 64-bit link

This can be useful if only a few files are needed that are provided as an archive on a website or ftp server. The effect saves bandwidth and speeds up the process. This technique is also available for Firefox provided by the Firefox extension Archview.

Web Archive Viewer has to be installed after download. It adds a right-click context menu entry to Internet Explorer when performing the action on a zip or rar file. The option “Open in Web Archives Viewer” should appear in the menu.

Selecting the option will open the web archive viewer showing the contents of the file archive in tree view. It is possible to click through the structure which contains information about file names, sizes and dates.

Double-clicking an entry will load it in the default application for that file type. There is however no way of saving the file by right-clicking it. The only option is to double-click it. Web Archive Viewer is furthermore not supporting any multi-volume archives.

Windows XP users on the other hand have access to Internet Explorer 6 by default and can upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 by downloading it from the official Microsoft Internet Explorer website. Internet Explorer 7 is available in many language versions as well, a huge page with 30 or so languages is provided on that website as well.

Microsoft is currently working on Internet Explorer 8; A beta version of that browser is available for download as well. The easiest way to download that Internet Explorer version would be to head for the Internet Explorer 8 site at Microsoft and download it from there.

Older versions of Internet Explorer are not available for download officially but a tool called IE Tester is available that gives access to previous versions of Internet Explorer.