Microsoft is cognizant of the fact that not everyone is ready for the touch-based environment that Windows 8 / 8.1 affords which is evident by recent browser market share statistics. Redmond isn't leaving those on Windows 7 to be forgotten about just yet as they have made Internet Explorer 11 available for download starting today.

It's not a huge surprise to see Microsoft drop a version of IE11 for Windows 7. A developer preview of the software for Win 7 was pushed out in late July followed by a more solid consumer preview in mid-September. It's been available for Windows 8.1 users for the past few weeks now.

Roger Capriotti, Microsoft's senior director of marketing for Internet Explorer, said the engineering team has worked to make every subsequent version of IE faster than its predecessor. This includes things like tapping into hardware acceleration by using the GPU to speed up the browser and boosting the performance of the Javascript engine.

Microsoft claims real-world websites will load up to nine percent faster than they did on IE10 and up to 30 percent faster than on competing browsers.

But it's not all about performance with IE11 as security has been fortified as well. A recent study from NSS Labs found that IE blocked 92 percent of phishing and malware attacks compared to just 71 percent from Chrome. Safari and Firefox scored poorly at 37 percent and 35 percent, respectively.

You can download a copy of Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 by clicking here.