Firefox Beta Scores 93 On Acid3 Test

CodeShark writes "Mozilla released their latest Firefox 3.X beta today (3.5b4), and increased their score on the Acid 3 test to 93 [on my XP laptop], with tests 70, 71, and tests 75-79 being the final challenges. Curiously though, the current release of the top Acid3 performer — Safari — still not only rates higher (I got scores of 99 once and 100 most of the time) but is usually faster by a little (1.1 sec avg. vs. 1.4 over ten runs apiece) but only because the new Firefox beta was all over the map — frequently better by 25% (.85sec) or tanking badly with rendering times in the 2.5 — 3 second range, and both suffer performance hits on one test (#69)."

Comments

Acid tests are not a race

[bunratty]

Because the Acid tests are not a race. It will be big news when IE reaches a score in the 80s, even if all other browsers score 100/100. This is because it will be much easier for web developers to develop interactive applications that work in all browsers when web developers don't need to bend over backwards to get their sites to work in IE. With the Acid tests, it's the browser in last place that's important, not which one is in first place.

Re:Acid tests are not a race

[Firehed]

Yes and no. While there are plenty of things you can't do on your websites as a designer/developer without cross-browser compatibility, you can save yourself some tremendous trouble on aesthetic work if you're willing to make some compromises. Look at border-radius, text-shadow, and box-shadow properties - none of them are critical to layout, each can add to a design, and each will fall back very gracefully in browsers that don't support the property.

If NO browsers support something, then you need a workaround. If only some support it, then you have to balance the importance of the element's presentation on the page with the ease of implementation (ex. do you use partially-supported border-radius or @font-face which takes thirty seconds, or do you a fully cross-browser hack which takes considerably longer?).

Re:Because we run Linux

[beelsebob]

Your package manager not having much software in it does not make your browser better. Only your package database worse.

Freetype and Apple patents

[viralMeme]

'One of the requirements is that the be able to render TrueType fonts. Correct rendering of Acid3 requires displaying a TrueType font called "Ahem"'

According to this Ahem is is in the public domain

"The big question: Does correct rendering of Ahem in Acid3 require the patented parts of TrueType?"

Freetype and Patents

"Myth 2: Apple Is Suing (or Sued) FreeType

This complete myth apparently started with this article on the SlashDot news site. Too bad the editors did neither care to check the submitted link nor even tried to contact us, we could have helped them!

It is true that we have been contacted by Apple's legal department, but that has never been in the clear intent of suing us, which isn't too surprising given that FreeType doesn't harm Apple in any way."