Microsoft unveiled Internet Explorer 11 as part of its Windows 8.1 update earlier this year, but now the software giant has pushed out a developer preview version for Windows 7, enabling the many users of this platform to try out its enhanced capabilities.

Available to download now, the IE11 Developer Preview is a pre-release version of Microsoft's next generation browser for Windows 7 users, and the firm warns that it is still under development.

Like the version of the browser included in the Windows 8.1 preview, this offers improved performance, faster page load times, new standards support for next generation sites, and completely revised F12 developer tools, Microsoft said.

Microsoft claims that IE11 is the first browser to natively decode Jpeg images in real-time on the GPU, and also the first to render text using the GPU. These changes are intended to not only boost page load times, but reduce power consumption and improve battery life, as text and images are such a major part of web content.

V3.co.uk