Acid2, a complex web-browser test page that shows a smiley face when rendered correctly, was announced two years ago on ZDNet.co.uk's sister site, CNET News.com.
Published by the Web Standards Project, the test has been a tremendous success in weeding out browser bugs that stop web designers from reaching pixel perfection in their pages. Safari and Opera ship Acid2-compliant versions, and the upcoming Firefox 3 will also pass the test.
Recently, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer version 8 can render Acid2, and it showed a screenshot to back the claim. The news was received with joy and excitement in the web-authoring community.
Finally, it seems, Microsoft has decided to take web standards seriously. Designers will no longer have to spend countless hours trying to get their pages to look right in Internet Explorer while adhering to standards.
Unfortunately, I think that the celebration is premature. I predict IE8 will not pass Acid2, after all.
But first, a few words about the next Acid test, soon to be published by the Web Standards Project: Acid3.
Acid3 will follow in the footsteps of Acid1 and Acid2; it's a tough one-page test that displays a quirky graphic when rendered correctly. No browser will pass the test at the time of its release. All vendors are equally challenged.
Whereas Acid2 was a static web page, Acid3 will be a dynamic web application. When browsers are improved to pass Acid3, it will become easier to write web applications that are interoperable across browsers.
Acid3 is written for and by the web community. Ian Hickson is the editor of the test. While he has a unique ability to write test cases that expose bugs in all browsers, he has also asked for help from others. Code contributions are welcome.
Acid2 and Acid3 both state that they should be tested using the default settings of the browser. Web-usability consultant Jakob Nielsen has discussed the power of defaults for search results. It applies to many other areas as well.
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People are more likely to use the default browser than an alternate browser. They are more likely to save a document in the default format than in an optional format. And they are more likely to display web documents using the browsers' default settings than to change the settings.
This brings me back to Microsoft and my prediction that IE8 will not pass Acid2. I suspect that IE8 will, at best, support standards in a circuitous way — they will exert the power of default.
What will happen when you type http://webstandards.org/acid2 in your freshly installed IE8? Will Acid2 be displayed correctly when you hit the test button?
Microsoft has been asked that question, but it has not given an answer. I think the company is considering three possible scenarios.
One scenario could be that IE8 will require users or authors to "opt in" to support standards. For example, in order to render Acid2 correctly, users could be required to modify IE8's default settings. This breaks with the guidelines of the test, and IE8 will therefore not pass in this scenario.
A second scenario could be that Microsoft requires web pages to change the default settings by flagging that they really want to be rendered correctly. Web pages already have a way to say this (called "doctype switching", which is supported by all browsers), but Microsoft has all but announced that IE8 will support yet another scheme.
If it decides to implement the new scheme, the Acid2 test — and all the other pages that use doctype switching — will not be rendered correctly.
A third scenario could be to hard-code the web address of Acid2 into IE8. This way, the page is given special treatment to make it look like the browser is passing the test. It should be obvious that this breaks the spirit of the test and doesn't warrant a passing grade.
I predict that Microsoft will implement at least one of these scenarios to limit the impact of standards. This would be damaging for the web, so I hope my prediction is completely and absolutely wrong. The IE8 team has shown it can render Acid2 correctly. Now it's time for Microsoft to put its code to good use.
Håkon Wium Lie is chief technology officer of Opera Software. Before joining Opera in 1999, he worked at W3C where he was responsible for the development of Cascading Style Sheets, a concept he proposed while working with Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1994.
Talkback
As a web developer it has been incredibly frustrating having to support Microsofts buggy browsers. IE7 was a good step in the right direction. I'd never use it as my browser of choice but supporting it has been a lot easier than supporting IE6. I can't wait to see the back of that browser.
The Acid2 test is not a game or an extra bullet point they can slap on IE8 by cheating. I understand why Microsoft may want to avoid being truly standards compliant - because they want all the badly coded websites that only work in IE to continue to be supported. Not because they care about the developer of these shoddy sites or the users but because as long as there are sites that won't work well in non-IE browsers it will encourage the use of IE. By making the default settings render pages correctly then those pages will break in IE too and it will either force the site developers to learn how to do their job properly and create standards compliant pages (losing IE it's exclusive access to those sites) or users will stick to older versions of IE so they can view these sites making IE8 uptake low.
Microsoft is in a difficult position as they will be criticised by ignorant users and cowboy developers if they make standards compliant browser that shows up errors in pages that seemed to work before. If they cling on to the bit of both approach they will disappoint and frustrate real developers who have to support the non-compliant browser. They will also be in a situation they will be just another compliant browser competing against the speed of Safari and the features of Opera and Firefox.
With Outlook 2007 switching it's rendering engine from IE to Word backfiring and causing Microsoft themselves to not be able to create HTML emails for their own product (see xbox live html emails on my blog) maybe they will learn their lesson and look and moving forward.
I think that if MS do the right thing and go compliant and offer great features in their browser instead of holding on to old proprietary code support they will gain more respect from developers rather than be a thorn in their side. This will probably require them to open up the browser to user created extensions/add-ons to compete with the likes of Firefox as any feature Microsoft create someone will make an add-on for Firefox that can do it.