A First Look At Internet Explorer 8 RC1

bogaboga writes "TG Daily reports that Microsoft quietly released the first update to its IE8 beta 2 to its closest partners last week. This new version only scores a dismal 12/100 on the Acid 3 test, though the score improves significantly if one leaves the [browser] window open for at least a minute. It is marked as 'Release Candidate 1.'"

Comments

Why It Takes an Extra Minute

[eldavojohn]

This new version only scores a dismal 12/100 on the Acid 3 test, though the score improves significantly if one leaves the [browser] window open for at least a minute.

It's true, it improves to 100/100! The reason you need to leave the browser open for at least a minute is because that's how long it takes to download this extension, install it, run the extension and put the acid 3 URL into the extension's address bar.

I recommend anyone who loves IE to do this!

Re:Why It Takes an Extra Minute

[sexconker]

You COULDN'T care less.
You could not care any less, because you absolutely do not care.

If you COULD care less, then you care some non-minimal amount.

Re:Why It Takes an Extra Minute

[mrdoogee]

It's a whole nuther thing here if you could care less. It makes me nauseous at how this nukeular power supposably is illiterate for all intensive purposes. I hate it, irregardless.

__________
__________
Now my head hurts.

IE needs a new slogan...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about:

Internet Explorer: Holding the Web Back Since 2001!

IE 10

[Cornwallis]

I'm guessing that by the time IE 10 is released it won't run at all finally making for a safe browser experience.

Seriously?

[DarrenBaker]

Surely you can't be serious - It scores higher if you leave the browser window open for a minute?

What is it, an Oldsmobile?

IE

[ionix5891]

is like a bad smell that wont go away

Good

[spinkham]

As someone who does both web security and some web design, I couldn't be happier.
Yes, IE 8 still sucks, but it sucks less then IE 7, which sucks less then IE 6.
IE 8 has some decent rendering improvements, a built in XSS filter, and lots of other changes.
In standards compliance it still sucks versus all the compition, but as long as it helps kill off IE 6, I'm happy.

Re:Good

[Leafheart]

In standards compliance it still sucks versus all the compition, but as long as it helps kill off IE 6, I'm happy.

As someone doing web design for a living for the past 10 years I can tell you that I'm really not happy. At all. I put standards compliance much higher than any gimmick like XSS. If firefox still had all the Extensions (which is hard to live without) but was not standards compliant, I would hate it, a lot.

Another IE that is not standards compliant, means or a new set of rules I cannot use on my code, or another set of hacks (already ahve one for 5, 5.5, 6 and 7

Re:Good

[Rearden82]

IE6 is still very popular despite the fact that 7 came out over two years ago. If users haven't upgraded by now, I see no reason why they would when 8 is released.

I'm sure IE8 will be broken in slightly different ways from 6 and 7. So all this really means is we will have to implement hacks for three different versions of a shitty, non-standards-compliant browser for the foreseeable future, instead of two.

Re:Damn, did I really not know?

[lloydchristmas759]

In Microsoft speak a RC is a feature complete product, parts are still buggy but the capabilities are in, they still reservice the right to add features but will not remove them.

Really? I thought that was the definition of "service pack 8".

Even simple HTML can crash IE8

[VJTod]

This simple HTML still crashes Beta2.  It will probably still crash the RTM.  This was a trick I found back in 2002.  I had reported it somewhere, but obviously nowhere important.

<table>
<tr>
<td><div style="width:100%;height:100%"/></td>
<td>
<div>
<span style="height:100%;width:50%">></td>
<span style="height:100%;width:50%">></td>
</div>
</td>
<td><div style="width:100%;height:100%"/></td>
</tr>
</table>

Re:Even simple HTML can crash IE8

[TeXMaster]

Poorly written HTML should NOT crash a browser.

Re:Even simple HTML can crash IE8

[Fastolfe]

Nothing should crash anything.

Re:Even simple HTML can crash IE8

[twistah]

This is a highly ignorant comment. A browser should never crash due to poorly written HTML, or due to anything. From the security angle, this is at least a DoS, but likely something more. Take a look at the IE7 0-day which is affecting millions of users. It is not a buffer overflow; it's a simple crash. However, because of JavaScript, one is able to manipulate ("spray") the heap enough to a point where even a simple crash can be used for code execution. ANY crash in a browser should be taken seriously.

Re:Some people STILL think they should use IE

[gzipped_tar]

The best (worst) argument for IE I've ever heard was "to save disk space".

Re:Not following standards costs us

[jc364]

Actually, IE 8 passes the Acid 2 test (yes, they are last, but its an improvement). Not to mention that Microsoft contributed 2524 test cases to the CSS 2.1 test suite. I'm a web developer, and I know the horrors of developing for multiple browsers (especially IE), but I have to give Microsoft some credit for their interest in standards in this coming IE version.

Also, the acid tests are just one indicator of how well a browser does standards. To make it the defining standards test would not be completely fair. More info on that here.

Re:But does it fix the critical vulnerability?

[Atti K.]

Oh yeah. IE lets you browse the internet, and vice versa.