After several releases of beta version and release candidate version of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), the new web browser has gone gold and released as official final version, with build 7.0.5730.11. Internet Explorer 7 features tabbed browsing support, web search widget right from the toolbar, advanced printing option such as shrink-to-fit printing, anti-phishing filter, ability to discover, read and subscribe to RSS feeds directly from IE7. More importantly, IE7 has improved security features such as ActiveX opt-in and improved support for web standards and CSS (cascading style sheets).

Internet Explorer 7

IE7 is available for free download at Internet Explorer Home. There are currently 4 English editions of IE7 available for download:

Windows XP SP2 Edition: IE7-WindowsXP-x86-enu.exe

Windows XP Pro x64 Edition: IE7-WindowsServer2003-x64-enu.exe

Windows Server 2003 32-bit Edition: IE7-WindowsServer2003-x86-enu.exe

Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition: IE7-WindowsServer2003-x64-enu.exe

Windows Server 2003 ia64 Edition: IE7-WindowsServer2003-ia64-enu.exe

Other localized language edition of IE7 such as Arabic, Finnish, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish will be releasing within the next few weeks, and other languages follows after that.

Yahoo! also released its edition of Internet Explorer 7 optimized for Yahoo! which incorporates several features unique to Yahoo! such as dual home pages of Yahoo! & Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Search as default search engine and pre-installed Yahoo! Toolbar. Ironically, IE7 optimized for Yahoo! is released and available for free download and upgrade even before Microsoft releases official version of IE7. So does Google.

IE7 will also be distributed and released as high-priority update via Automatic Updates in November 2006. Installation of IE7 needs a genuine Windows, which will be validated during setup process. However, hackers have found the way to install IE7 on system that failed WGA validation.

Update: Internet Explorer 8 is now available.