Microsoft claims real-world websites will load up to nine percent faster than they did on IE10 and up to 30 percent faster than on competing browsers.īut it's not all about performance with IE11 as security has been fortified as well. This includes things like tapping into hardware acceleration by using the GPU to speed up the browser and boosting the performance of the Javascript engine. Roger Capriotti, Microsoft's senior director of marketing for Internet Explorer, said the engineering team has worked to make every subsequent version of IE faster than its predecessor. It's been available for Windows 8.1 users for the past few weeks now. A developer preview of the software for Win 7 was pushed out in late July followed by a more solid consumer preview in mid-September. It's not a huge surprise to see Microsoft drop a version of IE11 for Windows 7.

Redmond isn't leaving those on Windows 7 to be forgotten about just yet as they have made Internet Explorer 11 available for download starting today. Microsoft is cognizant of the fact that not everyone is ready for the touch-based environment that Windows 8 / 8.1 affords which is evident by recent browser market share statistics.

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