Channel Register®

Original URL: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/01/25/ie8_version_switch/

Microsoft's smiley browser face turns sour

Doubts about IE on Acid

By Phil Manchester

Posted in Software & Security, 25th January 2008 20:16 GMT

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Microsoft's latest idea [1] for tackling Internet Explorer's lack of web standards compliance in the up-coming IE 8 has attracted a barrage of criticism.

Chris Wilson, Microsoft's IE platform architect, and chief IE bullet taker, has explained [2] how Microsoft intends to overcome standards and backwards compatibility problems by using a version switch.

Rather than change the IE architecture, Microsoft is putting the onus on developers to include a meta element on every web page to identify the appropriate rendering engine. Simple, huh?

So simple, the Web Standards Project supports [3] the idea and has gone as far as to suggest this should be extended to other browsers.

That's an idea, though, that's been rejected by both Safari [4] and Mozilla [5], for various reasons, chiefly: they already enjoy a high-degree of compliance with web standards.

Opera [6] dryly welcomed Microsoft's belated recognition of standards. However, Opera's Anne van Kesteren joined [7] Google HTML 5 [8] spec author Ian Hixie in criticizing [9] Microsoft's move for making web development even more complicated that it already is.

Developers in the broader community have also reacted [10] negatively to what they see as Microsoft side-stepping its responsibility to comply with web standards.

Doubts, meanwhile, have been raised about IE 8's ability to pass [11] the Acid 2 rendering test - an indication of a browser's standards compliance. Håkon Wiem Lie, chief technology officer at Opera, said [12] he belives Microsoft could find a way to get around genuine Acid 2 support in the final IE 8 release.®