Internet Explorer 8

Windows Internet Explorer8 or IE8 is a major version of the Internet Explorerweb browser for Windows released by Microsoft on March 19, 2009 and is the successor to Internet Explorer 7. It was the default browser on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

It is the first version of Internet Explorer to pass the Acid2 test, the last of the major browsers to do so. It is also the first version of Internet Explorer to include web development tools, as previous versions of Internet Explorer never had tools to develop websites. (In the later Acid3 Test, it only scores 24/100.) Additionally, it is the first version of Internet Expolrer to has a Compatibility View mode to optionally emulate older versions' rendering behavior, and color-coded tab groups where links opened in new tabs share the color of the website they originated from. According to Microsoft, security, ease of use, and improvements in RSS, CSS, and Ajax support were its priorities for IE8.

Internet Explorer 8 requires Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP2 or SP2 at the minimum. It is the last version of Internet Explorer released for Windows XP, Windows XP x64 Edition, and Windows Server 2003 before the operating systems reached end of support on April 8, 2014, and July 14, 2015, respectively. It is also the last version to support Windows Vista RTM (before this version reached end of support on April 13, 2010) and SP1 (before this version reached end of support on July 12, 2011), and Windows Server 2008 RTM (before this version reached end of support on the same day as its client counterpart). It is the last Itanium version of Internet Explorer as well, although it is only available as pre-installed in the Itanium edition of Windows Server 2008 R2. The Itanium version does not support versions earlier than Windows Server 2008 R2. In addition, it is the last version of Internet Explorer supporting processors without PAE or SSE2.