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Internet Explorer 9 has been under development for the past year, going through a number of platform previews, two betas. After a year-long wait, Microsoft finally hit the latest Release Candidate milestone with Internet Explorer 9.

The latest HTML5-compliant browser from Microsoft brings a number of speed improvements over previous versions of IE, including a refreshed UI. Internet Explorer 9 comes with a number of improvements and new features, including pinned websites that integrate with the Windows7 taskbar, jumplist support, a new tab layout page, a redesigned notification system to alert users of downloads and add-ons, a SmartScreen filter, tracking protection and a ton more features.

The new JavaScript engine, Chakra, brings Internet Explorer 9 to the top of the class of the top browsers in terms of speed. Compared to other browsers, Internet Explorer 9 outperforms in JavaScript benchmark results. IE9 also includes hardwareacceleration to help improve overall speed. (download links below)

In the early betas, Microsoft demonstrated some of the new components of IE9, including a tab tear-off Windows Aero-style snap feature. The ability to compare two websites side-by-side makes it easy to compare products on the web with IE9.

Download links for Internet Explorer 9 leaked a few hours early, as spotted by Winrumors.com:

Windows  7 (x86 version)

Windows 7 (x64 version)

Windows Vista (x86 version)

Windows Vista (x64 version)