Forum Moderators: open
Reported by the Register: [theregister.co.uk...]
IE is failing to display 2,400 of the largest websites.
Hope MS gets it right, SOON!
I know the developer team is making a much more intensive and even transaprent effort than was made for previous IE versions - I do get that. But I also think it's way past time that Microsoft understands that they belong to the web, and the web does not belong to Microsoft.
Are these problems all because IE8 needs to adapt to Vista? ;) If Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome can render these sites acceptably, then IE8 should too ... and without requiring webmasters across the globe to install extra code on all their pages.
In the end, no matter what Microsoft does, the incentive is to those who designed for the bugs and proprietary features of the legacy IE versions. They get what they deserve: redesign to the standards that were established long before IE6 and IE7 or most those sites even existed. Unfortunately for them Microsoft never told them clearly that their products didn't follow the established standards.
Microsoft's continued insistence on having proprietary additions and now this list of "sites we'll render in the old engine" is only prolonging the pain.
It's like removing the band-aid: do you pull slowly and hurt a lot for a long time or do you rip and still hurt a lot, but be over with it ?
I'm most afraid of all this tinkering with IE8 in order to make it more compatible with their past errors. As there is a real chance we'll get another deviant browser to deal with in the end.
The best option we have is to make sure all our sites validate, work in firefox/safari/chrome/opera etc. and are CSS hack-free. Our conditional comment to fix IE6 and IE7 should not target IE8 (i.e. change that "<!--[if IE]>" to "<!--[if lt IE 8]>" now).
All of the sites render just fine in IE7 and, indeed, have been written to do so.
Also, all of the sites will render just fine in IE8 using IE8's IE7 Compatibility Mode.
What's happening is - perhaps due to poor browser-sniffing on the server-side, or perhaps by the design of the site (styles within IE conditional comments, as an example) - the HTML as it is being delivered to a visitor using IE8 today will have a problem in IE8 running in IE8 Standards Mode.
Therefore, in order for people using IE8 to view and use the site as it's authors intend but yet still deliver a product that offers standards compliancy for those sites that are written compliantly, there is a Compatibility List within IE8 that provides a safety net, of sorts, to ensure that, as of today, the right mode is being used by IE8.
Contrary to some reporting, IE8 is standards-compliant by default, out of the box. But where there is reliable information that a particular site needs to be handled in IE7 Compat Mode in order to work right, IE8 is configured to check it's internal list. The list is periodically updated using Automatic Updates, I believe, and the user can opt out of the whole thing if they want.
Your choice.
Sites can trigger IE8 into IE8 Standards Mode at any time by the inclusion of the version metatag. This will always override the list. (And you can have your site taken off the list, too, of course.)
Is there something unreasonable about this? About protecting users and site authors as Microsoft moves to cross the divide into full standards compliancy?
Is not breaking pages a crime of some sort, now?
BTW - Opera has a similar feature.
