IE 5.5 Beats IE6 and IE7 On Acid 3

Steven Noonan sends us to a page where he is collecting and updating results for various browsers on the newly released Acid 3 test. No browser yet scores 100 on this test. (We discussed Acid 3 when it came out.) He writes, "It's not surprising that Internet Explorer is losing to every other modern browser, but how did IE 5.5 beat IE 6.0 and 7.0?" All of the IE versions score below 20 on Acid 3.

Comments

Re:And older firefox versions do better too

[Samari711]

a beta version having worse performance than a production version isn't exactly the same as an ancient, no longer supported version having better performance than the current production version.

Yes, you don't get it.

[Belial6]

I would have to say that it is that you don't get it. No one is so arrogant as to think that they can sit down and design the perfect web. As with virtually all of human achievement, we expect that there will be continual advancement, and hopefully we will never hit a wall. The Acid tests are road marks on the advancement of web browsers. The Acid tests are for the purpose of seeing just how compatible the browsers are. Scores of 0% and 100% are both useless. So, you make a test that is not so hard that no one can get even 1%, and that are not so easy that everyone gets 100%.

Well, the browsers are getting to that 100% point. Acid2 was not built to check 100% compliance, at that would have been useless. Not that the main browsers are reaching 100%, Acid2 is becoming useless, and Acid3 is necessary to see who has the best compliance. To use your school analogy, consider Acid2 to be the second grade. It is important to achieve that level, but when you do, you can expect the 3rd grade to follow it.

(And if your opinion of public schools is as low as mine, you are welcome to substitute "second grade" with level of knowledge that a 7 year old should have.

Re:Very simple

[Bogtha]

Microsoft doesn't WANT IE to be compatible.

This might fit in well with Slashdot groupthink, but it doesn't fit in well with reality.

Back when Internet Explorer 6 was being developed, they were in direct competition with Netscape. Internet Explorer 6, when it was released was probably the best browser around when it came to supporting CSS. And you want us to believe that the explanation for 6 being worse than 5.5 in this test was deliberate sabotage by Microsoft?

They abandoned Internet Explorer development when they won the browser war. Sure, at that point you can make a case for them not wanting to be compatible. But at that point, they weren't developing Internet Explorer at all, so you can't use it as an explanation for Internet Explorer getting worse. And when Internet Explorer development was restarted, they were responding to a call for improved standards support,which they have delivered on.

I'm sorry, but deliberate sabotage is a ridiculous way of explaining this. Remember, the Acid tests are designed to trigger flaws in popular browsers. Of course it's going to target Internet Explorer 6 and 7 bugs over ancient versions. Internet Explorer 5.5 is no longer popular, so what's the point in ferreting out bugs for the Acid3 test? The real surprise is that people didn't expect this result.

Re:safari

[bunratty]

Safari development builds are doing well on Acid3, and Safari passed Acid2 quickly, because Safari developers fixed the problems that the Acid tests demonstrate. If you look at the stable release builds of Safari, they do far worse than the stable release builds of Opera and Firefox. But if you look at the latest development builds, Safari does far better than Opera and Firefox. Safari is doing well on Acid tests because the developers put a lot of effort into making Safari do well on Acid tests, not because Safari is "ahead of the game" on standards.

There's far too much bickering about which browser is best and which browser is behind the curve. It seems that Safari, Opera, and Firefox are all very good browsers each with their own strengths in standards compliance and user interface, with IE constantly playing catch-up.

Re:Very simple

[arotenbe]

Hell, call me when they accomplish anything that plays well with others. In case you haven't been paying attention, IE8 already pass Acid2, which is a strict enough test by itself. Don't tell me that isn't trying to be compliant, especially given IE7's miserable performance at that same test. That and the fact that, unlike any previous release of IE, Microsoft's stated goal for IE8 is to improve standards compliance.