After the release of the first "We will release one more public update of IE8 in the first quarter of 2009, and then follow that up with the final release," Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager, Internet Explorer wrote at the official IEBlog.

Microsoft 's next public release of IE (typically called a "release candidate") indicates the end of the beta period.

"We want the technical community of people and organizations interested in web browsers to take this update as a strong signal that IE8 is effectively complete and done. They should expect the final product to behave as this update does," Hachamovitch added.

Microsoft also asks the community to test their sites and services with IE8, make any changes they feel and report any critical issues (e.g., issues impacting robustness, security, backwards compatibility, or completeness with respect to planned standards work).

"We will act on the most critical issues. We will be super clear about product changes we make between the update and the final release," Hachamovitch said.

Since the release of Beta 2, Microsoft's team has been absorbed in the data they got from real people about the product.