Internet Explorer 8 will implement Web Standards by default

acidtest2 Back in January, Microsoft proudly said that Internet Explorer 8 had passed Acid2 web standards test. It was said that Internet Explorer 8 will renders pages in the same way as IE7 by default. Web developers prefer standard mode of rendering pages, and obviously they were quite unhappy about the whole thing because it required us to add extra lines of code to make the pages render in the super-standard mode.

Fortunately, Microsoft had their ears open, and they’ve decided to render all pages in the super-standard mode by default. Here’s what IEBlog had to say about the change in their thinking:

"We think that acting in accordance with principles is important, and IE8′s default is a demonstration of the interoperability principles in action. While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue"

Again, this is a step in the right direction. Sticking to web standards will just make more web developers to show a friendly stance to IE, but I’m wonder how long will it take for IE8 to gain dominance after it gets released. Because web developers won’t have any effect, until majority of users start using Internet Explorer 8.

This post was published by on March 5, 2008

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://green-flamingo.com Nathaniel

    I’m very glad Microsoft was surfing the news, or IE8 wouldn’t be as good. Can you get IE8 fo free some how?

  • http://www.infodoorway.com James

    No matter what MS does in the future regarding IE, I don’t think I’ll ever leave Firefox. There are just too many reasons to stay with FF and almost as many reasons to abandon IE!

  • http://www.rapidsharetools.com RapidMaster

    A very good step towards a better web :)

  • http://www.techlivez.com Shashank

    I am waiting eagerly for this MS IE installment

  • http://technodorm.com Fahad

    I am 100% with James on this one. I have only started to use firefox since last june but am in love with it. Its got everything right and internet explorer seems a rathar useless app to me now. I will never be using IE again. Long live Firefox!

  • http://www.gadgets4nowt.co.uk Steve Elliott

    I struggle to use IE7 on my current laptop, it just seems to hog too much system resource. 50% more than Firefox to be honest.

    Unless IE8 is different, I wont be able to change even if I want to, and it does look good.

  • http://techmalaya.com Syahid A.

    I am looking for something groundbreaking by Microsoft, given how much Firefox had changed the browser scene nowadays.

  • http://technodorm.com/ Fahad

    I am 100% with James on this one. I have only started to use firefox since last june but am in love with it. Its got everything right and internet explorer seems a rathar useless app to me now. I will never be using IE again. Long live Firefox!