In August IE8 Beta 2 was released in English, German, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese, and in September Microsoft released support for 21 more languages. Microsoft officially set the deadline for the final version for later this year, and left it at that. We noted in September that, according to the IE8 Beta 2 support page, prerelease versions of IE8 would no longer be supported come November 1, 2008, suggesting that the final version would arrive this month. We've noticed, however, that this date has been recently changed to December 31:
Free unlimited installation and usage support is available for Internet Explorer 8 pre-released versions, but only for North America English customers. This support for Internet Explorer 8 pre-released versions is valid until December 31st, 2008.
Full Story: IE8 delayed? Microsoft extends support cutoff for IE8 betas