Today on Day 2 of MIX09, Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch during his keynote this morning in Las Vegas announced the availability of the final release of Internet Explorer 8 to download and install on their PCs.

Click here to download Internet Explorer 8!

Internet Explorer 8 is available for the following Windows releases: Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista (RTM), SP1 and SP2.

With Internet Explorer 8, common tasks on the Web are faster and easier. I’d like to take a moment and highlight how I am using Internet Explorer 8 today to quickly accomplish tasks that important to me. It all starts with my favorite Internet Explorer 8 feature – the Favorites Bar. The Favorites Bar in Internet Explorer 8 gives people quick access to information such as their top favorites and Web Slices.

On my Favorites Bar, I have Web Slices from partners such as Digg and The New York Times and of course Live Search (see my post on Live Search Web Slices). These Web Slices give me one click access to the latest news, weather, and traffic as I browse the Web. I never have to leave a webpage I’m on to view information from these Web Slices. When a Web Slice is updated, the slice on the Favorites Bar becomes bold. You can install Web Slices from The New York Times from this blog post from their First Look Blog and the Digg Web Slice can be installed by visiting Digg.com.

The Favorites Bar isn’t just a place for people to put their favorite Web Slices. In Internet Explorer 8, you can subscribe to an RSS feed and add it to your Favorites Bar.

With both RSS feeds and Web Slices on my Favorites Bar, I feel I am able to access important bits of information much quicker and easier.

The Favorites Bar is great at giving me information I want and keeping me up-to-date with things. But sometimes I need to quickly find something that’s not in my Favorites Bar. That’s where Internet Explorer 8’s Instant Search Box and Accelerators come in.

Internet Explorer 8’s Instant Search Box can provide Search Suggestions as you type in your search. When I search for “Windows” in Wikipedia, an Internet Explorer Search Provider, it provides me with suggestions (you’ll also note Instant Search also searches my History too).

Internet Explorer 8’s Instant Search also provides Visual Search. For example I am looking for some Zune accessories for my Zune 80. I want a dock for my Zune 80 for my office here in Redmond. Because just like with Wikipedia, I have Amazon.com as a Search Provider in Internet Explorer 8, I can search Amazon.com for Zune accessories and actually see the products.

 

Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 can also be a huge help in finding information you need – directly off a webpage.

Yesterday evening I was invited to a little meet up in downtime Seattle at a place called Spitfire Grill. I’m not too familiar with downtown Seattle yet so I had no idea where this place was. With Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 such as Live Search Maps, to find out where this place was real easy. All I needed to do was go to the Spitfire Grill website, select their address, click the blue Accelerator button that appears and choose “Map with Live Search” and a pop-out map appeared showing me where it was.

There are many Accelerators available today – including a Find on eBay Accelerator or a Find on Facebook Accelerator.

Accelerators aren’t necessarily just for finding information on a webpage. They can be used for sharing information on a webpage, or simply a webpage, too. My two favorite Accelerators I use to share information are the Share on Facebook Accelerator and fellow Microsoftie Adam Kinney’s Send to FriendFeed Accelerator. Both these Accelerators let me share webpages I find interesting that I would like other folks to check out.

So in closing, Internet Explorer 8 truly lets me do common tasks on the Web easier and faster. And because of it, I feel much more efficient. You should definitely go download Internet Explorer 8 today and give it a shot.

Feel free to share with me you favorite Web Slices, Search Providers or Accelerators in comments. Dig in at the Internet Explorer 8 Add-ons Gallery after you get Internet Explorer 8 installed.

And if you’re interested in how Internet Explorer 8 stacks up from a performance standpoint, I suggest reading this blog post and watching the following video:

IE8 Performance

With the release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 a few weeks ago, users were introduced to new features, such as Web Slices and Accelerators, as well as enhanced Search capabilities that make browsing the Web much easier. Users can now be exposed to specific bits of information they want quick access to - from the latest news to the latest weather to search for a new blue 8GB Zune. I'd like to take a moment to highlight just a few examples of partners who have taken advantage of IE8's capabilities in Beta 2.

Search:

New York Times Instant Search - By adding The New York Times as a Search Provider in IE8, users can search the latest headlines from The New York Times directly from IE8's inline search.

Web Slices:

Digg's Main Page Top 10 - Find the latest popular stories that have been "dug" on Digg with this Web Slice. 

freenetMail - Let's subscribers check their freenetMail, or view meetings, tasks and birthdays.

And Me.dium offers several Search Providers, Web Slices, Accelerators and Add-ons for IE8 that users can enjoy - mixing browsing the Web with social networking! Click here to see Me.dium's offerings.

More and more new Web Slices, Accelerators, Search Providers, and Add-ons are getting added to the Internet Explorer Gallery all the time.

Today we are also releasing IE8 Beta 2 in 21 more languages in addition to what we released last month (English, Germany, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese). The additional languages are: Arabic, Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

You can click here to download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 today.

For more about Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, be sure to check out my comprehensive overview or this series of very cool IE8 videos that showcase many of the features available in IE8 Beta 2 today.

I wanted to give you all a heads up on something new we're bringing to the blog. 

A lot of times when the Product Team is showing off Windows Vista, the crowd is pretty impressed by all of the useful features we built into the OS. Most of these are things that will make day-to-day work quicker or easier - especially for those of us office drones. But many of our users just don't know they exist. So we figured, why not show you some of our favorite features? 

Over the next week or so, our own Esther Choi from Windows Vista Product Management will be hosting a series of short videos that don't just cover what these features are, but also how and when to use them. We hope to make videos from the Windows Vista Product Management Team a regular thing, so let us know what you think by leaving a comment...and what you want to hear more about! 

Today we're kicking off with Instant Search, which is really cool in Windows Vista. Finding stuff can be a big pain, but the search capabilities built directly into the OS help me locate the documents, music files, photos, emails and whatever else you're looking for quickly. 

Video: Windows Vista Demo: Instant Search

By the way, while we're on the topic of features, I wanted to let you know that the Windows Vista Product Guide - a great resource on all things Windows Vista - is now available for FREE in paperback.  All you have to do is pay for shipping.  Order your copy here.  I should note that the paperback guide doesn't include the new stuff in SP1, but you can download all of that information here.