IE 8.1 Supports Firefox Plugins, Rendering Engine

KermodeBear writes in to note that according to Smashing Magazine, the newest version of Internet Explorer, codenamed "Eagle Eyes," supports Firefox plugins, the Gecko and Webkit rendering engines, and has scored a 71 / 100 on the Acid3 test. The article is pretty gee-whiz, and I don't entirely believe the claims that IE's JavaScript performance will trounce the others. (And note that the current Firefox, 3.0.8, scores 71 on Acid3, and Safari 3.1.2 hits 75.) No definitive date from Microsoft, but "sources" say that an IE 8.1 beta will be released in the summer.

Comments

Awesome

[Idiomatick]

If it is all true. IE is finally done playing catchup and the general populace still using IE won't be behind. But so far IE doesn't really offer anything that FF doesn't. Chrome for example is missing a lot of things but it has stuff no one else does. All in all this can only cause good things to happen on the internet.

Wait...what?

[thesolo]

I smell bullshit.

How on earth would IE 8, a browser with a UI not written in XUL, be able to "flawlessly" use a Firefox plugin like Tab Mix Plus? Unless IE 8.1 embeds all of Gecko, plus XUL, XPCom, the XPI to install the plugins, you couldn't install or run a plugin on it. And why on earth would Microsoft suddenly give in and embed other rendering engines? That's not something the dominant browser does, that's something that a low-share browser does to help with compatibility, ala Netscape 7.

I don't buy it. Furthermore, the article is light on details, has some dubious screenshots, and was published just before April Fools' Day.

P.S. If you want to use Firebug in non-Firefox browsers, then use the Lite version. It works great in IE.

Re:Don't forget to vote!

[areusche]

This BS has got to stop. I'm going to go and burn some karma, but websites should not be pulling April Fools jokes a day or two early. Why? Because sarcasm is lost in text. The humor in this article was not obvious that I ended up thinking it was true. Haha I was fooled! On march 31st! Stop the jokes when they're not supposed to be done. This article would have been easier to spot in the late 90s with IE 4 and 5. Nowadays they're doing better.

Re:Don't forget to vote!

[master5o1]

Yeah, but when the site's URL has the date in it, and it's 31 March, then it's really stupid. I'm in New Zealand so It's been April for 10 hours now.


http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ 2009/03/31/breaking-internet-explorer-81-eagle-eyes-leaked/

Best April Fools EVER

[tjstork]

If you skim the thing, it seems pretty real, but once you get into it, you find gems like:

"[Pauses to answer a call from his iPhone]"

"Internet Explorer has always been the leader of executing client-side scripts, but that didnâ(TM)t stop Microsoft from continuing its thirst for excellence by including a completely new JavaScript engine called JSE, which stands for JavaScript Speedy Engine"

This article is just great...what sucks for Microsoft is, everyone wishes this article were true!

Why isn't this headline PINK?

[fruity_pebbles]

April Fool's deserves the full color treatment!

Re:Don't forget to vote!

[Randle_Revar]

DD/MM/YYYY is better than MM/DD/YYYY, but still not as good as YYYY/MM/DD

Re:Don't forget to vote!

[WED Fan]

Willing to bet the /. editor let this through thinking it was real as well.