IE8 Download Page Goes Live - New Features Revealed [Archive]

~David

Mar 5, 2008, 04:06 AM

http://digg.com/software/IE8_Download_Page_Goes_Live_New_Features_Revealed

Digg It! :D

I know, this is an Apple Community, but I'm sure there's still some Windows users in here who are anxious to hear about this :p

angelneo

Mar 5, 2008, 04:42 AM

~David

Mar 5, 2008, 05:00 AM

Great, clicking on Release Notes on IE 8 brings me to a "Article is currently not available" link. The only thing I really want to see is that they support web standards better, or at least pass the freakin Acid2 (http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/) test.

None of the links are live yet, they'll all be live after the MIX08 conference at 9:30AM PST :)

Also, IE8 passes the Acid 2 test with flying colors: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/19/internet-explorer-8-and-acid2-a-milestone.aspx

jSunbeam

Mar 5, 2008, 05:03 AM

~David

Mar 5, 2008, 05:13 AM

I dream of the day when I don't have to spend half of my time supporting IE's stupid quirks. However, as much as this is good news, I can see it being a good few years before IE6 (and even IE7, which still has quite a few dodgy elements) is 'gone'.

Luckily my blog has absolutely no problems with IE7. IE6, however, is a different story... I gave up in trying to make it compliant. I'm super excited about IE8 though :D

Eraserhead

Mar 5, 2008, 06:32 AM

Great, clicking on Release Notes on IE 8 brings me to a "Article is currently not available" link. The only thing I really want to see is that they support web standards better, or at least pass the freakin Acid2 (http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/) test.

It EDIT:still fails Acid2, but there is now Acid3 to pass. I've tested them all (http://www.matthewhutton.com/acid3.html) (well the top 4 browsers) and I'll be curious to see how IE 8 performs. Hopefully it wont overwrite IE 7 so I can test it out sooner rather than later.

TBi

Mar 5, 2008, 06:44 AM

I dream of the day when I don't have to spend half of my time supporting IE's stupid quirks. However, as much as this is good news, I can see it being a good few years before IE6 (and even IE7, which still has quite a few dodgy elements) is 'gone'.

Just remember that those quirks keep you in a job. If any old person off the street could write a website that would work perfectly on every browser then why would they need to pay you so much money.

I know you can argue that you make really complex and feature rich websites, but you still get to charge more than someone who can make complex and feature rich websites that can't get them to work on other browsers. :)

They aren't bugs, they are well designed money making "features" :)

Eraserhead

Mar 5, 2008, 07:30 AM

TBi

Mar 5, 2008, 09:31 AM

There's still skill and money in making websites, just like there is in making offline software.

Hence the second line in my post that you didn't quote :) I covered all bases!

I know you can argue that you make really complex and feature rich websites, but you still get to charge more than someone who can make complex and feature rich websites that can't get them to work on other browsers.

mkrishnan

Mar 5, 2008, 09:34 AM

Seems like some nice but small improvements. It's good to see that Microsoft has gone back to actually trying to make IE a better product. The Activities implementation seems nice -- I would like to see more functionality like that in time in Firefox as well.

edesignuk

Mar 5, 2008, 09:35 AM

I can scarcely contain my excitement.

angelneo

Mar 5, 2008, 08:30 PM

It passes Acid2, but there is now Acid3 to pass. I've tested them all (http://www.matthewhutton.com/acid3.html) (well the top 4 browsers) and I'll be curious to see how IE 8 performs. Hopefully it wont overwrite IE 7 so I can test it out sooner rather than later.

Good to know that, hopefully, this will be a good product upgrade. Now the problem would be getting people to start using IE 8.....

Nermal

Mar 5, 2008, 08:38 PM

iTeen

Mar 5, 2008, 08:40 PM

o wow...can i possibly hide my current exietment???? i think not.
Internet Explorer will always suck.:rolleyes:

ayeying

Mar 5, 2008, 09:40 PM

"Download the latest beta version of the world's most popular Web browser."

Its not popular because people like it... its popular because people don't know alternatives :(

~David

Mar 6, 2008, 08:07 AM

It's broken all 4 of my sites. Three have rendering issues and the fourth is actually non-functional now.

The meta tag for IE 7 compatibility mode doesn't seem to work as the same rendering issues still exist after adding it.

It looks like I have a bit of work ahead of me!

Don't fix your sites yet. Beta 1 still has some serious rendering issues that will be fixed in later builds, meaning you'll need to fix your sites again. Wait until the final release or at least until the Release Candidates start coming out before you start any work (if still necessary by then).

About the tag, are you sure you've input it correctly? It works for me, this is the meta tag:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" />

And it needs to go in the Head of your code.

Eraserhead

Mar 6, 2008, 11:25 AM

Hence the second line in my post that you didn't quote :) I covered all bases!

Damn I missed that.

I've installed IE 8, and it does better, it gets 17/100 now. And I've updated the renderings (http://www.matthewhutton.com/acid3.html). However in comparison the latest Webkit gets 89/100, so MS have a way to go yet.

Eraserhead

Mar 6, 2008, 11:40 AM

It passes Acid2,

Rather than believing the MS Employee saying that IE 8 passes Acid2, I've just tested it myself. *Shockingly* it doesn't actually pass :rolleyes:.

I am running Vista, with totally default settings and the latest security updates.

clevin

Mar 6, 2008, 11:47 AM

Rather than believing the MS Employee saying that IE 8 passes Acid2, I've just tested it myself. *Shockingly* it doesn't actually pass :rolleyes:.

I am running Vista, with totally default settings and the latest security updates.

mmmm.... really? I thought about downloading it last night, but eventually didn't.. let me try this out tonite.. I am kinda surprised they would cheat on such a public claim.

Eraserhead

Mar 6, 2008, 11:52 AM

mmmm.... really?

Well it doesn't on Vista on my Macbook, you can see the screenshot on my website.

I have to admit I'm kinda surprised too.

xUKHCx

Mar 6, 2008, 12:15 PM

It worked fine on ACid2 on XP SP2.

It got 7086.6ms on the Sunspider test which puts it about 2x slower than the latest webkit nightly.

RAM usage wise on the page I use for testing it failed to show all the pictures and used 188MB of ram so high ram usage for little results. Out of all the browsers I tested recently this performed the worse in regards to displaying the pictures on the page.

Eraserhead

Mar 6, 2008, 12:25 PM

It worked fine on ACid2 on XP SP2.

So even Microsoft aren't using Vista :rolleyes:.

xUKHCx

Mar 6, 2008, 12:30 PM

So even Microsoft aren't using Vista :rolleyes:.

I just looked at your site with the picture of the Acid2 test on IE8. On XP it looked like that but only for about a second and then snapped to what it should actually look like.

~David

Mar 6, 2008, 02:11 PM

Rather than believing the MS Employee saying that IE 8 passes Acid2, I've just tested it myself. *Shockingly* it doesn't actually pass :rolleyes:.

I am running Vista, with totally default settings and the latest security updates.

Anybody saying that it doesn't pass Acid2, you have to run it from the official webstandards.org website, not the acidtests.org web site.

Full explanation as to why here: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/05/why-isn-t-ie8-passing-acid2.aspx

Nermal

Mar 6, 2008, 02:25 PM

About the tag, are you sure you've input it correctly? It works for me, this is the meta tag:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" />

And it needs to go in the Head of your code.

I tried it on a different site and it worked. There must be some issue with the site I was trying it on yesterday.

The problematic site is actually getting a complete overhaul later this year so it's a bit of a moot point anyway :)

Eraserhead

Mar 6, 2008, 02:30 PM

Anybody saying that it doesn't pass Acid2, you have to run it from the official webstandards.org website, not the acidtests.org web site.

Full explanation as to why here: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/05/why-isn-t-ie8-passing-acid2.aspx

Ah, yep thats OK it works now, I thought the acidtests.org site was the new one for all the tests :o.

Nermal

Mar 6, 2008, 02:35 PM

I've installed IE 8, and it does better, it gets 17/100 now. And I've updated the renderings (http://www.matthewhutton.com/acid3.html). However in comparison the latest Webkit gets 89/100, so MS have a way to go yet.

It'll be interesting to see how far the released Safari 3.1 gets. The current beta gets to 76.

Eraserhead

Mar 6, 2008, 02:54 PM

It'll be interesting to see how far the released Safari 3.1 gets. The current beta gets to 76.

As the latest Webkit beta gets to 89, my guess is 100.

clevin

Mar 6, 2008, 03:31 PM

As the latest Webkit beta gets to 89, my guess is 100.

there is no beta for webkit, today's nightly of webkit is 90/100.

Safari 3.1 probably won't use latest webkit, so 100/100 is possible, but don't bet on it.

Nermal

Mar 6, 2008, 05:46 PM

I'm going off topic a bit...

I never thought to try 3.1 on Windows until now. It can FINALLY talk to our ISA server without crashing :D

angelneo

Mar 6, 2008, 08:43 PM

I got burnt the last time when I downloaded and installed IE 7 beta (it basically screws up my machine). Now you guys make me feel the urge to download and test the new version.... :p

Nermal

Mar 6, 2008, 09:46 PM

It's a developer release, Microsoft makes that very clear. I don't know whether you're a developer or not but it's certainly not intended for end-users. I'm running it on VMware so that it can't screw up my real system (which is still IE 6).

Nermal

Mar 10, 2008, 11:12 PM

Still no XHTML support :rolleyes:

For the unaware: XHTML served as text/html goes through the SGML parser. IE8 still won't read it when served as application/xhtml+xml (I'm oversimplifying a bit but you get the idea). There's a nice little table here (http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/#summary).

jSunbeam

Mar 10, 2008, 11:22 PM

Just remember that those quirks keep you in a job. If any old person off the street could write a website that would work perfectly on every browser then why would they need to pay you so much money.

I know you can argue that you make really complex and feature rich websites, but you still get to charge more than someone who can make complex and feature rich websites that can't get them to work on other browsers. :)

They aren't bugs, they are well designed money making "features" :)

Heh! Fair point. :D