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

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!

[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/

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