IE 8 Passes Acid2 Test

notamicrosoftlover writes to tell us Channel9 is reporting that Internet Explorer 8 has correctly rendered the Acid2 page in "standards mode". "With respect to standards and interoperability, our goal in developing Internet Explorer 8 is to support the right set of standards with excellent implementations and do so without breaking the existing web. This second goal refers to the lessons we learned during IE 7. IE7's CSS improvements made IE more compliant with some standards and less compatible with some sites on the web as they were coded. Many sites and developers have done special work to work well with IE6, mostly as a result of the evolution of the web and standards since 2001 and the level of support in the various versions of IE that pre-date many standards. We have a responsibility to respect the work that sites have already done to work with IE. We must deliver improved standards support and backwards compatibility so that IE8 (1) continues to work with the billions of pages on the web today that already work in IE6 and IE7 and (2) makes the development of the next billion pages, in an interoperable way, much easier. We'll blog more, and learn more, about this during the IE8 beta cycle." There's also a video interview regarding IE8 development on Channel9."

Re:So let's geek this out

[hcmtnbiker]

You might note that only a couple browsers completely pass it. [wikipedia.org] Officially released web browsers that pass there is only Konqueror, Safari 2.02; firefox does not make the list. So ~97% of all browsers don't pass it.

Re:So let's geek this out

[Anonymous Coward]

The page says right now that Firefox 3.0 beta passes it.

Re:"standards mode"?

[ScytheBlade1]

Standards mode is invoked when you specify a strict doctype in the page.

This IS out of the box support. Let's have less false assumptions and cheap shots at Microsoft, okay?

Re:Standards Mode?

[Anonymous Coward]

Standards modes are determined by the content of the page, not by the user. Usually based mostly on the DOC tag, but also with automatic fallbacks based on content validation.

Re:Whats the rush to IE8?

[jellomizer]

I just checked the Acid 2 Test with firefox it failed. So did Safari 3 (which is odd because Safari 2 passed)

Re:So let's geek this out

[junglee_iitk]

Actually, right now I am testing Acid Test 2 with Firefox Beta 2 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b2) Gecko/2007121016 Firefox/3.0b2) and it DOES NOT pass the test.

Here is a screenshot: acid2 [picoodle.com]

Re:Wonder how long

[Kelson]

IE requires the user to turn on a special "standards mode" to correctly render STANDARD WEBSITES.

The concept of "standards mode" and "quirks mode" has been around for several years, and is implemented in IE6, IE7, Firefox, and Opera, and for all I know in Gecko as well. The user does not have to flip a switch. The developer has to put some code at the beginning to show that he knows what he's doing, usually in the form of an appropriate DOCTYPE.

Re:Standards Mode?

[Jeremy Visser]

"Standards mode" is a browser rendering mode which first appeared in Internet Explorer 6, as a way for Microsoft to get around the Catch-22 of fixing their browser to be more standards compliant, and not breaking so many websites at the same time.

"Standards mode" is triggered by the presence of a proper DOCTYPE, like one of the ones here [wikipedia.org].

"Quirks mode" is a rendering mode triggered by the lack of the DOCTYPE, which causes the browser to emulate many of the bugs that, if fixed, would break lots of sites.

All the major browsers implement standards/quirks mode these days. Internet Explorer 7/8's quirks mode rendering has not changed since IE6, which means, if your non-standards-compliant site worked in IE6, and doesn't use a DOCTYPE, it's not going to further break in IE7/8.

Argh, dumb typo.

[Kelson]

I meant "for all I know in WebKit as well." Gecko, of course, is the engine used by Firefox.

Re:Remember kids...

[Kelson]

It'll also be nice it it handles transparent PNGs properly with nothing more than an tag--like how IE/5 Mac did almost eight fucking years ago.

They finally did in IE7, released in November 2006.

And, from what I've read before, it tests how browsers handle incorrect code as much as anything else--i.e., if it deals with errors correctly.

That's not the only thing it tests, but proper error handling is critical for forward compatibility. A fully CSS2-compliant browser, when faced with CSS3, will see it as incorrect code. Ditto for an HTML4 browser looking at HTML5 or XHTML1. If there are well-specified ways to handle errors, and the browsers follow them, then you can predict what browsers will do if they don't support a particular feature.

Remember...

[xENoLocO]

the acid test is not a standards compliance test... it's a test of how well browsers break on sites that DONT support standards. It's not a measure of standards support for the browser, but it is nice to have.

Re:Remember kids...

[Kelson]

And to follow up, here's a page that goes into much more detail on just what Acid2 tests [webstandards.org], including:

• Data URLs
• Transparent PNGs
• The object element
• Absolute, relative and fixed positioning
• Box model
• CSS tables
• Margins
• Generated content
• CSS parsing (this would be the part about handling incorrect code)
• Paint order
• Line heights
• Hovering effects

Re:Why aren't other browsers standards compliant?

[VGPowerlord]

With all the puling about IE not being compliant with the arbitary standards set by a bunch of MS-haters...

Extra, extra, Microsoft Corporation is an MS-hater [w3.org]! News at 11!

Re:Since you had to...

[muszek]

don't know about KDE, but in GNOME alt + prnt scrn takes a screenshot of the active window.

Re:Woooo!

[JebusIsLord]

I think this is important news even for the typical slashdot reader (doesn't use IE, isn't a web developer) because it means that webpages are going to look better now. Web developers who only target IE will no longer build pages that look funny in Firefox, because IE8 will finally render things correctly. Great stuff!

I'm on Safari (Mac) right now... here's hoping they add a download manager too, and maybe support for the XML/HTML mime type (proper XHTML support).

Yes, ACID2 is broken - Server error

[Kelson]

I noticed the same error on Konqueror 3.5.8, Opera 9.5a, & Firefox 3 on Linux, and on Opera 9.24 and Safari 3.04 on Windows -- all of which are supposed to pass the test.

Earlier today I tried to pull up the webstandards.org website, and couldn't. This got me thinking it might be a server problem.

I looked at the code for the test, and at one point it has an OBJECT where it tries to load the url, http://www.webstandards.org/404/ [webstandards.org]. That should fail, causing the browser to display the fallback content inside the OBJECT element instead.

Guess what? That URL is returning a 200 OK code instead of 404 Not Found, so the compliant browsers are doing what they're supposed to do and displaying the content of that page in a little rectangle with scroll bars, and hiding the fallback content that we would normally see.

When their webmaster fixes the server config, the various compliant browsers should start displaying it correctly again.

Re:Yes, sadly

[jlarocco]

I used to have a script that would download an unofficial nightly build of Firefox every morning when I logged in. A lot of the "unofficial" nightly builds will use up and coming features like newer Gecko engines, and have some non-standard optimizations turned on.

Look around here [mozillazine.org], and you should be able to find a frequently updated nightly build that uses Gecko 1.9. If you update frequently you'll definitely want to keep a backup of the last "good" install.

That being said: Konqueror! FTW!

On further investigation...

[Kelson]

It looks like a server error, since all Acid2-compliant browsers seem to be rendering it with the same exact error. More in this comment [slashdot.org].

Re:So let's geek this out

[POWRSURG]

Yes, when virtually no one [hitslink.com] turns out to be 36.84% of all users, or roughly 47.6% of all users using some version of IE (4-7, including pocket), I'd say that no one has moved over. :p

Re:So let's geek this out

[Kelson]

Opera 9 is rendering it correctly.

Not for me, it isn't. Opera 9, Firefox 3 and Konqueror 3 are all showing the exact same error. The left eye is replaced with an orange dither, while the center forehead and everything to the right are replaced with a wide black rectangle, a long horizontal scrollbar and a short vertical scrollbar. Hovering over it sometimes shows "Skip to content", and scrolling picks up things that look like tiny slivers of the www.webstandards.org website.

Safari for windows is not.

On second look, Safari on Windows is failing in a slightly different manner, with just the orange dither across both eyes like a blindfold. So there may be something else going on there.

Re:Only with standard DOCTYPE

[Kelson]

I think it would be nice if browsers continued to fix spaghetti, but also showed a message somewhere that indicated that the page was buggy. Not a pop-up or anything, but a small, unobtrusive icon that was green and happy for a good page, or red and frowny for a bad.

Just out of curiosity, are you an iCab [icab.de] user?

Re:Platform compatibility

[Korin43]

As far as I know, any new browser has the option to turn off tabbed browsing (in firefox you go to options then "tabs" (on the top) and change "New Windows Open in.." from tabs to a new window.

Re:So let's geek this out

[CheShACat]

true,but most of those other browsers have been working towards compliance for a looong time. This is the first time i've heard anything of the sort from IE. In fact, it sees a bit of a turnaround because when they were developing IE7, IIRC, they specifically stated that it was not on their agenda to meet standards, including acid2.

Re:So let's geek this out

[Tavor]

As posted here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=394500&cid=21761480 [slashdot.org]

The acid test is currently broken.
Coincidence?

Proof: Here's a mirror of the Acid2 Test, FF passes. http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/002/ [hixie.ch]

Re:Whats the rush to IE8?

[Jesus_666]

It's not Safari which is broken [slashdot.org]. Apparently the Web Standards copy of the test relies on a certain URL returning a 404 error. However, in a page redesign the server was configured to not return a 404 but instead a nice HTML page telling you that the requested resource could not be found.

Yeah, I find it pretty amusing that the Web Standards Project broke a standard test by using a nonstandard way of reporting broken links. Score one for the WSP's reputation!

Re:Platform compatibility

[Kelson]

So, now how can I get Firefox to use the Google toolbar without also having a built-in search box?

Right-click on the toolbar, and select Customize. Drag the search box off the toolbar onto the palette. Done!