Like many others, when Microsoft announced at MIX08 that Internet Explorer 8 would be standards compliant, I was extremely pleased that they made a decision to finally conform to the standards that have been around for years.  Bottom line is, this was what we all wanted Microsoft to do years ago.

So all is good in IE8 land right?  Wrong.  Internet Explorer 8’s ideas of compliance is breaking websites that ARE standards compliant.  How exactly is this possible?  It’s simple, IE8 is NOT standards compliant.  The simple fact that the browser passed the acid2 test does not mean that it is compliant.  This can be confirmed by putting IE8 through the Acid3 test.  The abysmal score of 12/100 leaves a LOT to be desired.

So, what should Microsoft do at this point?  Well they will tell you that they are working on the problem and working towards a compliant model, and that IE8 will indeed not be fully compliant.  But I have an alternate solution to offer up.  How about ditching the Trident engine altogether?  By doing this, Microsoft would be getting rid of the largest thorn in the side of web developers all over the world.  So my solution is simple, use another engine, preferably Webkit.  By doing this the hard work is already done for them, the browser will be fully standards compliant, and Microsoft can focus on adding real features and innovation to the browser, instead of wasting all their time on an obviously broken engine.

What are your thoughts about this?  I’m curious to see how the community feels about the current state of Internet Explorer 8.

Today at the MIX conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced the first beta of Internet Explorer 8.  This release of IE targets web standards in the agressive way the IE team should have done this years ago.  While beta 1 is a release mainly targeted at the developer sector, some of you may want to check it out.  One thing I will say though, the new rendering engine is still rather buggy and “IE7 Emulation” mode is almost a necessity on some sites.

Just a few notes though, since I noticed people complaining that IE8 doesn’t pass Acid2.  First off, it does pass, you guys are just using a knockoff of the original, here’s a better explanation from the IE team themselves:

IE Team Blog post about Acid2

This version also includes a slew of new features that many users should enjoy, including Activities and Web Slices.  You can find out more about all of this over at the IE8 Start Page.

Enjoy!  And feel free to comment with your feedback.