Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 24th Mar 2009 23:26 UTC, submitted by inkslinger
Recently, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8, which boasted much better standards compliance than previous iterations of the browser. While it passed the Acid2 test, IE8 failed miserably in the Acid3 test, and many people criticised Microsoft for it. Microsoft Australia's Nick Hodge has stated that Microsoft purposefully decided not to support Acid3, because the test tests against draft standards.
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Member since:
2008-01-20
Actually.. I'd have to agree with Microsoft at this point. Its entirely valid.
Nobody should be using draft standards in their code anyway, even if browsers can use the standards. Otherwise later if the standards change, everyone will start crying "IE8 breaks standards" after changes are made to the standards, and Microsoft complies. Microsoft is in a position where people strike them down in ALL cases of operation. Hell, most mac users are still walking around telling people that "OSX doesn't bsod, and Vista BSOD's constantly". And they get away with it. Not everything MS does is right, but they best be cautious.
ACID3 is more of a marketing tool. Browsers like to make a lot of noise that they support it, but the reality is, only a few tests in ACID3 are valid (like the performance tests). Just because Safari or Opera supports ACID3 doesn't make them a good browser (I don't personally use IE8 or any of these).
What happens if the standards change? Even ACID3 will be broken then. We shouldn't encourage websites to be developed using standards which aren't set in stone, especially when there is no good reason to. There was a good reason to break standards with 802.11n (it offered genuine benefits, and the process was moving much too slow).
In this case, I'd rather Microsoft spends their time optimising IE, so that IE9's performance is finally at par, instead of WAYYY below.