This piece of news was misinterpreted initially. Comments were spawned from the get go that Microsoft's rival Yahoo has made the final release of Internet Explorer 7 available for download prior to Microsoft itself. The Redmond Company clarified the issue in a post on the Internet Explorer Blog. "In addition to our release of IE7, Yahoo! has a customized version of the browser available today and over the next few days partners such as Weather.com and USA TODAY will offer their own customized versions. These versions will tailor the user experience with specific toolbars, additional search engines, favorites, and RSS feeds," stated Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft General Manager.

And this is exactly what Yahoo's release of Internet Explorer 7 is: a customized version of the original browser. The Sunnyvale Internet giant just build up on IE7, personalizing it to tailor fit Yahoo content. On the download page of IE7 optimized for Yahoo, the Sunnyvale company reveals the changes introduced to the browser: 2 home pages: Yahoo! & Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Search as your default search engine and the Yahoo! Toolbar.

As with the original release of Internet Explorer 7, the browser delivers support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows XP Professional x64 and Windows Server 2003 SP1. Bear in mind that Windows Validation is mandatory for upgrading to or installing IE7. Alternative versions of Windows are not supported as Microsoft has disallowed support for Windows XP SP1 and older variants, and Windows Vista comes with its own version of IE7.

Internet Explorer 7 was tested by Softpedia as being 100% Free and is available for download here.