Opera 10 Alpha 1 Released, Aces Acid 3 Test

Khuffie writes "It seems that the upcoming version of Opera 10, of which the first Alpha has recently been released, has already passed the Acid 3 test with a 100/100. The only other rendering engine to have a complete score is WebKit, which can be seen in Google Chrome's nightly build. Opera 10 Alpha 1 will also finally include auto-updates, inline spell checking, and see some improvements to its built-in mail client, including much-requested rich text composition."

Comments

Acid is just a dick size comparison anyway...

[clone53421]

From a user's perspective: Yes, it's cool to pass the Acid tests, but unless one of my favourite websites breaks in Firefox (or IE, for the less geeky among us), I really won't care.

From a developer's perspective: Until the really atrocious browsers (*cough*IE*cough*) get up to standard, developers will continue to have headaches coding for cross-browser compatibility anyway. Currently, you have to test for "IE" and "everything else" (ok, so you need to test in all the non-IE browsers for completeness' sake, but if it works in one of them it's very likely going to work in all of them).

Re:Acid is just a dick size comparison anyway...

[Phroggy]

From a user's perspective: Yes, it's cool to pass the Acid tests, but unless one of my favourite websites breaks in Firefox (or IE, for the less geeky among us), I really won't care.

If both Firefox and Opera pass the Acid tests, then there's a very good chance that your favorite web sites won't break in either of them. Passing Acid3 is not a reason to switch to Opera. Passing Acid3 removes a reason why you might not want to switch. If you're perfectly happy with your current browser and have no other reasons to consider switching, feel free to ignore this announcement.

From a developer's perspective: Until the really atrocious browsers (*cough*IE*cough*) get up to standard, developers will continue to have headaches coding for cross-browser compatibility anyway. Currently, you have to test for "IE" and "everything else" (ok, so you need to test in all the non-IE browsers for completeness' sake, but if it works in one of them it's very likely going to work in all of them).

Internet Explorer 8 passes Acid2; Microsoft is definitely working on getting "up to standard". Neither IE nor Firefox pass Acid3 yet, but it's definitely a goal that Microsoft and Mozilla should be aiming for. The purpose of the Acid tests is to highlight areas where some browsers don't precisely adhere to W3C recommendations; if these issues can be corrected in the browsers, so that all browsers behave the same way, then developers' lives will become MUCH easier. Indeed, as you point out, the current situation is that you only really have to test for IE and "everything else"; this is a dramatic improvement from the days of testing for IE on Windows and IE on Mac and Mozilla and Opera and Safari, and there would be significant differences between all of them. IE8 will mean a huge leap forward in cross-browser compatibility, and the Acid tests are one reason why.

Re:Acid is just a dick size comparison anyway...

[mixmatch]

Sure, IE8 will help, but there is still the problem of penetration. IE7 was released over two years ago, and still has less than 30% penetration. IE6 is still being used by around one in five users, and it has outright horrifying CSS rendering. Unless there have been drastic changes since the release of IE7, this is what can be predicted for the next few years of browser usage:
- IE6 usage will continue to decrease at a rate of 1-2% per month, putting it between 5-8% by the end of next year.
- IE7 will continue to increase for 4-6 months until the release of IE8. At a rate of 0.5-1% per month, that would put it at about 30-31% when IE8 is released. IE8 release will cause of decrease in usage of 10-15% in the first two months, and 1-2% per month afterward. This will put IE7 at about 12-18% by the end of next year.
- IE8 will be released between April and July. It will immediately gain 10-15% in the first two month. Usage will then increase at a rate of 0.5-1% per month, mostly at the expense of IE7 usage.This will put IE8 at about 18-22% by the end of next year.
- FF will continue to grow steadily at a rate of 0.75% per month. FF will be around 55% by the end of next year. Chrome poses the biggest threat to FF growth should a final version be released in the next year. This could affect from 2-10% of FF usage stats, depending on Google marketing and 'geek cred'.
- Safari growth will continue at 0.1%/month, leading it to 4-4.5% by the end of next year.
- Opera growth will continue around 0.1%/month, leading it to 3.3-3.5% at the end of next year.
- Chrome will remain around 2.5-4% until a release or increased advertising causes it to gain visibility, after which growth is unpredictable.

Re:Meh..

[Kees Van Loo-Macklin]

Firefox had this years ago, seriously is this accurate, Opera just got these?

Funny, considering most other browser alway feel like an old version of opera to me. Especially Firefox.

Honestly the only thing Firefox has going for it over opera is the plugins. Which I dont entirely trust.

Re:Meh..

[maxume]

By that standard, Mosaic is the best browser ever, as it added inline images before most other browsers existed.

Re:Meh..

[moderatorrater]

Competition is almost invariably a good thing for users, but in the case of web browsers, all it does is force the developers to add countless new "features" to "stay ahead of the competition" instead of spending that time making it do the things it already does the way it should.

Like passing the ACID test? Like giving you a start page that's ridiculously useful? Like making tabbed browsing work? Like making sure that everything runs in its own process?

What exactly would you like to see the browser do better? It seems to me that they're refining things faster than they're adding features.

Re:Meh..

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Firefox had this years ago, seriously is this accurate, Opera just got these?

Now you know how Opera users feel every single time there's a FireFox upgrade story.

Re:Meh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Opera had a spelling checker before Firefox. The thing that is new is that this is now an inline spelling checker.

As for automatic updates, Opera has had those in some form for years as well. I think the new thing here is that it actually performs the update itself if you let it, and I don't believe Firefox does that yet, does it?

Re:Meh..

[BrentH]

That still doesnt allow easy whitelisting javascript from certain adresses, only whole webpages.

Re:Meh..

[NEOGEOman]

Actually, as AVee mentionedyou can do this easily:
F12
Site Preferences
Scripting tab
un-tick Enable Javascript

"It's not where Firefox put it, and I can't install the plugins I know and love... Forget this 'trying new things' crap. Now to post ignorantly on slashdot!"