RSSIE8 Beta 1 experiences Acid2 hiccups, while Acid3 is rolled out
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published March 6, 2008, 12:17 PM
Testers anxious to see the first Internet Explorer edition that passes a Web standards test by default, were disappointed yesterday to discover it wasn't passing as expected. Naturally, Microsoft had an excuse on hand.
A choice regarding the default handling of ActiveX controls, according to Internet Explorer developer Phil Nachreiner late yesterday, forced the first public Beta 1 build of IE8 to fail the independent Acid2 test for public standards.
"IE8 fails the copies of ACID2 due to the cross domain security checks IE performs for ActiveX controls," Nachreiner wrote. "Since IE does not natively handle HTML content in the OBJECT tag, but rather uses IE's rendering engine as an ActiveX to display this HTML content, the same cross domain security checks also apply."
BetaNews has been working to independently verify Nachreiner's report, though thus far, we've actually been unable to properly install IE8 in our virtual Vista environment. As of 11:30 am, the installation routine fails to properly identify updates that have already been installed. As a result, once IE8 "thinks" it's installed, most of the screen rendering features of Vista no longer appear to be assessing the correct screen resolution -- so for instance, sidebar gadgets are rendered with some parts at the proper size and some not. (Internet Explorer's renderer is also responsible for the appearance of gadgets.)
12:30 pm EST March 6, 2008 - Once we got a semi-working copy of IE8 running on our Windows Vista virtual machine (note: we haven't installed Service Pack 1 yet), we actually got better results with Acid2 than many others.
For our virtual machine, which was posing some rendering problems, we did have to scale the rendering to 82% -- which may be why slight lines appear under the smiley-face's nose and mouth, like unwanted facial hair. But although we saw the same window gadget controls as revealed in Nachreiner's post in place of the radio-button eyes for about two seconds, they were soon replaced with well-rendered eyes.
That fact suggests that IE8 -- which for our tests was running in its new, native IE8 standards mode -- actually did parse the fallback URL address, rather than discard it as Nachreiner stated it did.
While we had a moment, we did go ahead and try the Acid2 test in IE7 emulation mode, which is available from a prominent button on the new IE8 toolbar. Of course, it failed spectacularly.
We also tried IE8 in its native mode on the new Acid3 test, and there too, we scored better than others were reporting...though not much better: 17 out of 100. When rendered properly, Acid3 should show an array of differently colored boxes, from small to large. IE8 Beta 1 instead showed the same boxes, but way, way down the page, most in black except for the final one in grey.
2:50 pm EST March 6, 2008 - A lot has to do, we learned, with the domain the Acid2 test hails from: The version which passed is hosted on www.webstandards.org. The version which fails IE8 due apparently to the cross-checking domains problem to which Nachreiner refers, is hosted on webstandards.org (without the subdomain).
It's exactly the same test, though the relative placement of the domain from which the test and the fallback are hosted, are apparently the cause of the mis-rendered eyes, when and if they are mis-rendered.
One other possible culprit may involve a new IE8 feature called deep zoom, which is capable of scaling graphics and text to larger or smaller sizes to fit a given resolution. When we managed to get IE8 to run -- albeit, not well -- we noticed that its default zoom resolution was not well calibrated with where "100%" should be. A normal-sized rendering was more like 82% on IE8's new variable zoom scale.
Right now, it looks like someone threw down our system clock onto the desktop and smashed it into a dozen pieces. Once we work that beta bug out, we hope to see the Acid2 test for ourselves.
Nachreiner's explanation went into further detail: Currently, he said, the Acid2 test gives a URL for a "fallback rendering" of an embedded object. Apparently as a benefit of Microsoft's settlement with Eolas, IE can now handle ActiveX rendering however it chooses; and this time, Microsoft has chosen to offload the task of rendering ActiveX controls to a separately instantiated version of the renderer. For security reasons, cross-checking takes place between the browser container and the component.
But that would mean the URL of the fallback rendering would have to be checked for validity...and because that can't happen now, the "eyes" in the smiley-face for the Acid2 test, produced by two radio button controls, can't be rendered normally.
"To maintain compatibility and be secure by default we didn't want to invoke fallback either, as original Web authors might not have intended this behavior," wrote Nachreiner. "We started with the most secure solution and are now looking into whether we can safely loosen this restriction in a future beta."
The fallback mechanism dates back to a W3C proposal for HTML 4.01, dated December 1999.
While all this was going on, the Web Standards Project -- with which Microsoft said it has been consulting -- moved the goalposts for standardization once again with its rollout of the Acid3 test, ostensibly to replace Acid2.
"Acid3 goes beyond the CSS tests implemented by Acid2 and tests a browser's DOM Scripting capability, as well as continuing to probe visual rendering of CSS, SVG and webfonts," reads the official explanation posted to the Project's Web site on Monday.
Initial Acid3 test scores using apparently working copies of IE8 Beta 1 were hauntingly low, including this one from an independent tester posting to the IE8 development site. His score was a 12 out of 100; a later contributor reported a 14.
Try Acid 3 and as far as testing IE8, Maxthon, Firefox 3 Pre-beta5 and Opera. Only Firefox 3 pre-beta5 has the highest score of 67/100. IE8=14/100, Maxthon = IE8 =14/100 and Opera 9.26 B8335 = 36/100 (and crashed).
This is why I am very happy with Firefox as my browser of choice.
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|Sweet! IE8 doesn't work with Hotmail (or vice versa)! Hotmail couldn't even load the Ajax version. In the classic version, it looks like crap!!!
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|Um...really? IE8 works with hotmail on my PC at home...
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|I'm running Vista Business 32 bit, btw. Maybe it only works in XP. I also noticed that it lags in the Vista version and not in the XP version. One more thing, you cannot uninstall it in the Vista version; I had to do a system restore.
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|No, I have Vista Ultimate 32-bit edition at home.
I haven't tried uninstalling it, but it does show up under the Programs and Features applett...it is also faster than IE7 on my Vista box, in fact it's the first time I've ever seen a new version of IE that was faster than the previous one.
I suppose configuration has alot to do with it.
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|and i didnt even get the chance to install it:
i have "legal" XP-pro - with SP3 installed - tried the IE8-xp installation - told me i need to install an update/patch - "click here" - took me to the MS site - allowed me to validate/d-load the patch - went to install and patch said "cant install patch as you already have a newer version installed" - a typical MS lead in a circle !
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|you are using beta software, of course its not going to work for beta sp3, try uninstalling it, it should work then.
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|It amazes me how many people don't know what there talking about.
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|I have it running on Windows XP SP3 RC2 which runs perfectly! However IE8 doesn't support Vista SP1 Beta. This isn't rocket science... Of coarse there are bugs, what do you expect. There is a reason why there is a Emulate IE7 button..
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|This product is an interesting change, first I noticed it wanted to Emulate IE7, and then i noticed it wanted to import my Firefox bookmarks that was an interesting change of pace. what I found disturbing IE8 did not render any web sites until i opened the firewall to reprogram permission for yes IE to work on it's own firewall. That was a bit of work to figure out, that and it's resources are still running very high for one app. I encourage anyone to install "Process Explorer" and launch the product and monitor the actions of Internet Explorer 8. The interface remains the same, accept for the Emulate Ie7 and the button for developers. After completing my examination of this product, I have rolled it back to IE7 and maintain use with Firefox 2. So let's break this down, unless you really need to see what's new because of a program or project you are working on.. Just wait for the finished product. Your machine and family will thank you in the long run. ** END OF LINE **
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|I don't really understand the facination with passing any Acid test to prove which is the better browser. So, say you get 100/100 on Acid3. Great! Now your browser will work with the 5% of websites that are coded this perfectly. I don't really care about passing tests, as long as a browser is fast, secure, and renders every page I visit the way it should be.
Since so few people conform to the standards that these browsers try so hard to pass, why does it matter so much?
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|"Since so few people conform to the standards that these browsers try so hard to pass, why does it matter so much?"
This is the view Microsoft took for version 7, and this is why a lot of web developers went berserk.
The whole point here is that it will promote better coding of websites and generally improve the web experience for everyone over time.
Yes, currently it won't be too great, but gradually it will help both developers to create better and more interesting web apps and also it will help customers by having greater compitition (thus creating new and more interesting features) and competition between browsers.
I hope that answers your question.
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|It matters to the people who write websites. There are not a few of them, there are many of them. Your statement might have been true back in the 90s when IE6 ruled and didn't care about standards, but now if a business wants to have a website that looks good for all of their customers they need to worry about cross-browser compatibility and standards.
Back in the days of IE6, you wrote for IE6. Microsoft killed Netscape and then stopped developing IE. IE6 doesn't care much about standards, so you couldn't just use the w3c standards, no... you had to refresh IE6 after every web page change to check to be sure that div tag or whatever you put in didn't somehow inexplicably break the entire page.
When Firefox came out, finally we had a good standards follower which was actually gaining market share. Which meant now, you could be reasonably sure any page that looked good in either Firefox or Opera would look good in the other, because they both followed standards. This is getting even better as both browsers are further refined.
However, you still needed to keep at least two browser windows open (IE and Firefox) to make sure a change you made which was perfectly acceptable to one browser wouldn't break the other (the other usually being IE) and then having to hack a special case in for IE that Firefox wouldn't use. Even with IE7 I still had to put in IE7 hacks to my pages.
Not much changed with the release of IE7, but now you were free to simply advise IE6 users to "upgrade" to Firefox (or IE7, if they had XP) since there was now a CHOICE it gave both users and devs more flexibility. However IE7 was still miles away from the other browsers in standards.
IE8 also seems to be quite a ways away but it's starting to get there. Hopefully soon devs can simply make their webpages to conform to the standards and their page will look great in ANY browser. That is the big deal.
The Acid2 test doesn't exactly test conformance to standards as much as the conformance to what to do with a NON-standard document. For example, there's a reference to a non-existent file in there. The web browser should handle this a specific way, but IIRC browser devs had been focusing on handling standards more than what the acid2 test looks for. Acid2 brought attention to this.
I don't know exactly what Acid3 tests, but at least it's more straightforward (it's more evident by the numerical score how your browser is stacking up, and you can get a detailed technical report ... s*** click the A after it finishes).
You say yourself you want the browser to render every page the way it should be. That's what the acid tests determine... whether javascript and rendering are working the way they should.
You could also say you don't care about passing a history exam as long as you learn the material in the class... but what better way to prove it?
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|*laughing*
back in the 90s when IE6 ruled
Um.
IE6?
That wouldn't by chance be the same IE6 that currently holds the lion's share of the browser market, would it?
Not to lessen your point or anything, but IE6 is far from ousted from it's place at the top of the browser food-chain.
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|Yup, IE6 came out in August of 2001 too...it must truley be amazing to have ruled two years before it was released :D
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|I generally am impressed with IE8, but what I find ironically hilarious is that MSN.com web pages do not render either not well or not at all. Otherwise I'm impressed.
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|I thought this too. It also doesn't like the Facebook homepage.
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|It also doesn't like the Facebook homepage.
Well, that's not saying much. No-one likes facebook.
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|The funniest thing I've found is that someone already released a proof of concept extension for Firefox to have it support Microsoft Activities. I couldn't get it to work but it was just the fact someone took one of IE8's great new features and added it Firefox in 24 hours.
I dunno what version of Firefox the extension was for, maybe I need to wait for 3 beta 4, or it'll only really work in Firefox 2 until it's updated...
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|Heh. True. I thought it somewhat ironic when the welcome page in IE8 actually mentions Facebook quite prominently.
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|So far Opera is lider,
scores 65 leatest build 9807
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|No, actually WebKit (http://nightly.webkit.org/) is the leader on Acid3. Please test and post your results.
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|Acid3
68/100
Latest Firefox nightly build...
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|Seamonkey failed both tests.
Windows Vista x86 on Dell Dimension E521
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|OK.
IE 8 passed Acid2, flunked Acid3 with 17/100
Seamonkey 1.1.8 flunked Acid2 and got 17/100 on acid3
FireFox 2.0.0.12 flunked both tests, got 50 out of 100 on Acid3.
Firefox 3 beta 3 (found here) passed acid2, got 59/100.
IE 8 and Firefox 3 need work. I already know that IE 7 and IE 6 will flunk. However, I am getting ready to try IE 8 with IE 7 emulator mode, then Silverlight and Java will be put back on.
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|Firefox 3 beta 3 gets a 61. For some reason some of the tests seem to sometimes pass or fail? Maybe it's a timing issue. Or perhaps some people have extensions which are messing up the tests.
Opera is the best browser I've tried on Acid3 with a 65... I hear Firefox 3b4 gets a 66. So I wouldn't say it's doing so bad. :)
Also it's not about reaching 100 necessarily, that would be nice, but it's more of a way to see which browsers are more standards compliant.
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|Not bad, 67/100 on Acid3 test w/ Fx v3 beta5pre.
Acid2 passes as expected.
Edit* Added Not bad,
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|Passed Acid2, flunked acid3.
I am going to try Seamonkey and
Firefox here.
BTW this is without the SP1 or Silverlight
Or Java.
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|Got an update for the minefield and tested it for Acid 3. Improved it from 67/100 to 69/100. Way to go.
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|Isn't it fantastic news that ACID test conformance seems to be a goal for IE8? These tests are damn difficult to pass.
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|IE8 passed Acid2 on my Vista machine. Yes, I have Vista, and no, it didn't eat my soul.
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|I never had a soul, when I prompted Vista to give me one I accidentally clicked Cancel instead of Allow. :(
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|Just tested with firefox nightly (2008030607)
got a 68 on acid3
Also got a 12 with ie6
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|Heh...for a beta intended for developers to get a look at how it will render certain pages, rendering pages differently depending on OS, SP level, and such seems like a bad thing...
Perhaps Beta 2 will fare better? They are really not getting IE8 off to a good start here.
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|Oh please... I am by no means a fan of IE, but Firefox had it's fair share of horrible bugs with the first Version 3 beta.
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|*laughs*
...and had far less money backing it.
...and had far less public scrutiny.
...and wasn't publicized as a version with which devs could base their site-compatibility.
I normally defend MSFT when they are being unfairly pounced upon, and I'm not even saying they blew it completely, but they certainly did not even come close to delivering what they said they were delivering.
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|thanks
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|Use your freaking hands to pull up a search engine to determine this.
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|Or just look one comment below.
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|With the Acid 3 Test, I get:
Opera Version 9.5 9815 = 64/100
Firefox Version 2.0.0.12 = 50/100
IE8 Beta 1 = 17/100
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|Firefox 3 beta3 = 59/100
Sorry bud, big omission. Intentional?
I'm an Opera guy too BTW.
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|Opera 9.26 = 46/100
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|Whoops! Sorry for the double-post.
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|Funny, I just did this test in FireFox and it failed. I haven't tried IE8 yet. So it seems according to most people, IE8 is more standards compliant than FireFox.
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|IE8 engine is brand new and Firefox "2" which you tried is more than a year old...
TRY IT WITH FIREFOX 3 LOOSER! it even gets 59 in Acid "3" test while IE8 gets 17. Of course Acid 2 is a piece of cake for it.
http://www.webstandards....les/acid2/test.html#top
http://acid3.acidtests.org/
so many lame bashers in the forum...
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|lmao...
Wow. Relax, man.
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|What are they talking about???
I have the IE8beta1 in my completely patched XPsp2 and it passes, with a slight delay for rendering the eyes. And the zoom has been always sitting at 100%.
Maybe those problems reported are probably Vista symptoms only.
-----
EDIT: a text box with sliders appears with some text in ACID 3 and delays the test bit, which by the way gives me a 17 score. Anyone with the same results, what is it? (some similar thing happens in ACID 2 in the place of the eyes)
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|My IE8 install on a clean XP SP2 (fully updated) hung up in the "updates" section, then proceeded after I opened Task Manager. IE8 hogs a gross amount of real estate at the top of the screen. I also can't find a way to turn the "font smoothing" or fuzzy fonts off. Otherwise, it's looks more like Safari than IE7. I immediately switched back to IE6. After 10 years of IE updates, I'm tired of the constant rearrangement of icons and menus. I also do not like the wasted space at the top of the screen.
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|After 10 years of IE updates, I'm tired of the constant rearrangement of icons and menus. I also do not like the wasted space at the top of the screen.
Then stop updating?
Does that not seem like the logical conclusion to that particular predicament.
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|do you wanna stay 10, 11, 12 years behind?...
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|No, I just don't like sloppy programming.
Windows and IE is a commodity at this point.
Besides, I'm the one that heard about all the changes and confusion from customers that accidently installed IE7, and thought the world was going to come to a screeching halt. Every major change to Windows becomes a small catastrophy for users. NO ONE CAN DENY THAT :)
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|That's odd. It doesn't fail for me any more. It did first time.
I have just found it renders CSS very, very slowly.
*Edit* Happy to screen shot it for anyone who wants to see.
*Edit edit* Thank goodness for the Acid3 test testing JavaScript. It's been lacking in most browsers for a long time (not just IE).
*Edit edit edit* I get a 17/100 for IE8 in Acid 3.
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|Safari scored a 39 on acid3 (Leopard version) and it looked horrible :(
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|If you use the webkit nightly on acid 3 it scores an 88. And if you use the latest beta of Opera 9.50 it scores a 65.
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|My Mac 10.5.2 using Safari 3.1 build 5525.12 scored a 76 on Acid 3
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|My PC with FireFox beta 3 looks like a Giant Purple Elephant on Acid.
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|^Comment of the day^
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