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W3C Says IE9 Is Currently the Most HTML5 Compatible Browser

Posted by Soulskill on from the complain-about-the-tests-here dept.

GIL_Dude writes "The W3C posted results for their latest HTML5 compatibility tests and have found that, so far, IE 9 has the best overall results. 'The tests cover seven aspects of the spec: "attributes," "audio," "video," "canvas," "getElementsByClassName," "foreigncontent," and "xhtml5." The tests do not yet cover web workers, the file API, local storage, or other aspects of the spec. Not do they cover CSS or other standards that have nothing to do with HTML5 but are somehow lumped under HTML5 by the likes of Apple, Google, and Microsoft.'"

29 of 382 comments (clear)

  1. Posting from IE8... by anss123 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does slashdot work any better in IE9?

    1. Re:Posting from IE8... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Slashdot works differently horrible in all browsers.

    2. Re:Posting from IE8... by electron+sponge · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, I'm still seeing the same stupid comments

    3. Re:Posting from IE8... by Byzantine · · Score: 5, Funny

      Consistency is all I ask

    4. Re:Posting from IE8... by Saishuuheiki · · Score: 5, Funny

      Will consistency in inconsistency suffice?

      Or consistently inconsistent

    5. Re:Posting from IE8... by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or doesn't work properly if you have JS disabled since they removed or disabled the old comment controls. In a similar vein, the W3C test results are presented via some javascript crud. Assuming that is that the visitor has it enabled.

      A lot of website functionality is built with JavaScript - that's just a fact of life. You don't have to enable it, but you really can't complain when websites don't cater to the small minority of users who either disable or block all scripts. We're trying to get sites not to support the dying number of IE6 users, and I'd be willing to bet the % of users not using JS is even lower than IE6 users. If all sites were simply written in HTML there would be a lot less 'web' out there.

    6. Re:Posting from IE8... by pjt33 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the Anonymous Coward has a stronger case here. Graceful degradation is the way sites are supposed to work. You can't complain when the snazzy stuff doesn't work with JS turned off, but you can complain when basic forms don't work.

    7. Re:Posting from IE8... by EvanED · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nobody disables javascript because they want to, they disable it because javascript is the number one source of web browser vulnerabilities by at least an order of magnitude, probably two.

      No it isn't, not even close. Flash and Acrobat Reader are by far the biggest infection vectors; raw, browser-based JS is positively benign by comparison.

      Stuff like making it easier to do tracking cookies and be generally annoying are JS's biggest flaws.

  2. Not suprising by metrix007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    For all the flak IE gets, it's actually a great browser. We all know Microsoft make great products and often take the lead when forced to, and now is no different.

    It is also the most secure browser by far, what with its inherent use of MAC, and full DEP and ALSR support. Strange, but true.

    --
    If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
    1. Re:Not suprising by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IE 9 is currently the most HTML5 compatible browser - but are they only testing the new HTML5 features? How does it do on the HTML4 code that is currently 99% of all the code on the internet?

    2. Re:Not suprising by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No other browser is limited to Windows.

    3. Re:Not suprising by makomk · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not only that, but I think at least one of the features they're testing is a former IE-ism that's been standardised, and the other browsers have prioritized HTML5 features like local storage that aren't tested here at all.

    4. Re:Not suprising by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      On Snow Leopard, yes. FireFox uses the platform's native text rendering engine. Safari uses Apple's one wherever it runs. This means that you get Apple's sub-pixel AA instead of Microsoft's ClearType on Windows.

      You also get some slightly different glyph positioning. Microsoft tweaks glyph positions by a fraction of a pixel to make them line up more closely with pixel boundaries. This makes individual characters clearer, but means that the spacing between characters looks a bit messed up. Apple renders glyphs exactly where they should be, which means that they often overlap pixel boundaries and need a lot of antialiasing.

      If you're used to Microsoft's rendering, Apple's text will look slightly blurry. If you're used to Apple's rendering, Microsoft's will look weirdly spaced.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    5. Re:Not suprising by God'sDuck · · Score: 3, Informative

      That's probably because Firefox supports fractional font sizes: 12.1px, 12.3px, 12.5px...
       
      Every other lunkheaded browser rounds to the nearest whole pixel value. If the site developers use relative font sizes (ems, percents) and don't do precise math, the site ends up with a declared pixel size between values...and only Firefox delivers the declared size.
       
      As a CSS guy, this means I find other browsers infuriating. Now that we have Webfonts I want to render ever piece of text with fonts instead of graphics...but getting a banner to just the right size is often impossible without a fractional font size. As a normal user, it means Firefox more often than not looks "wrong," because it's far enough ahead of the curve to be out front alone.

    6. Re:Not suprising by Purity+Of+Essence · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, how about this: Limited to Windows 7 / Vista. That's a much bigger problem for the 50% of us who use Windows XP.

      --
      +0 Meh
    7. Re:Not suprising by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As a CSS guy, this means I find other browsers infuriating. Now that we have Webfonts I want to render ever piece of text with fonts instead of graphics...but getting a banner to just the right size is often impossible without a fractional font size. As a normal user ...

      As a normal user, I do not want you to have the ability to define exact pixel sizes of fonts, without my ability to override them without completely breaking site layout (which is what will happen if your buttons etc will be designed for a specific size). There are many reasons for why that is the case, but the most obvious one is that I do not want to see tiny, hard-to-read text, and so all my browsers are set up to not allow anything below 13px. Any well-designed website works fine with such an arrangement; if yours does not, I will just go elsewhere.

      By the way, one of my personal dislikes with Flash is that there is no way to impose a similar restriction there, and that Flash designers, for some reason, love tiny fonts for menus, buttons and such.

    8. Re:Not suprising by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

      Safari uses Apple's one wherever it runs. This means that you get Apple's sub-pixel AA instead of Microsoft's ClearType on Windows.

      This used to be the case, but for a while now Safari for Windows gives you the choice between OS stock rendering, and Apple's fonts.

      Microsoft tweaks glyph positions by a fraction of a pixel to make them line up more closely with pixel boundaries. This makes individual characters clearer, but means that the spacing between characters looks a bit messed up. Apple renders glyphs exactly where they should be, which means that they often overlap pixel boundaries and need a lot of antialiasing.

      To be more specific, ClearType tweaks glyphs such that vertical lines are snapped to pixel boundaries - so a 1px vertical line is rendered using a single-pixel-wide column of physical pixels. On OS X, the same 1px vertical line can end up on fractional coordinates (e.g. at X=8.5px), and will be rendered using double-pixel-wide column of physical pixels to approximate that. The result is more blurry.

      This is particularly noticeable on small fonts with thin elements, such as Windows system fonts Tahoma 8pt (in 2K/XP) and Segoe 9pt (in Vista/7). It's also why OS X default font is larger, and the stems are thicker.

      The disadvantage with ClearType approach is not just "weird spacing", though. It distorts the overall size of the text by its adjustments. Normally, if you increase the point size twice, the physical size in pixels should also increase by exact same amount (+/-1px due to need to round to physical pixel boundary). OS X rendering actually guarantees that. On Windows, text rendered using small fonts is noticeably (by 20% or so) larger than it would be if "perfect rendering" was used, and so proportion is not maintained.

      Which one is better is highly subjective, and more often than not the preference is defined by what the person was using before. Personally, I can't stand OS X rendering and love ClearType. I've met people who felt just as strong in the other direction.

    9. Re:Not suprising by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Having access to a 14.5px font has absolutely nothing to do with using 8px font.

      GP was complaining about the inability to use fractional-sized fonts in general, and his explanation as to why he needs it is so that he can precision-match text on various UI elements. My point is that his expectation of being able to precision-match text size at all is incompatible with basic accessibility issues, and that any website relying on such tricks is broken for many people.

      It doesn't have anything to do with specific font sizes. Mine's minimum is set to 13px because that's what I can read well without squinting on my display. My mother's vision is much worse, so hers is at around 15px or so (I don't recall exactly), so even in a browser which supports fractional font sizes, a webpage requesting 14.5px would not get it.

    10. Re:Not suprising by willy_me · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you want pixel perfect rendering of fonts and graphics, use PDF or a related technology. The whole idea behind HTML is that the content can be rendered differently on different devices. As such, a proper design should never rely on exact font sizes.

  3. Well I'm going to say congrats... by catbutt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ....to Microsoft, for moving in the right direction of adopting standards. I still hate you, Microsoft, but I hate you less.

    Now figure out a way to get people to stop using IE6. (maybe an add-on to IE9 that makes it so you can run your ancient IE6 only apps?)

  4. What kind of a "standard" is this? by cowtamer · · Score: 3, Funny

    Perhaps my understanding of "standard" is a bit skewed, but isn't there something wrong when the best that a browser in its 9th version backed by the most powerful software company in the world can do is just be the "most compatible" one out there?

    All FTP clients I use are 100% compatible with the FTP standard. I believe Adobe Flash player is 100% compatible with Flash. I think most mail clients are 100% IMAP and POP3 compatible.

    Shouldn't standards be straightforward enough so that all parties wishing to comply to them simply can? Shouldn't compatibility with a standard be a floor instead of a ceiling to asymptotically crept towards?

    I'm sure I'm missing something here -- what is it?

    1. Re:What kind of a "standard" is this? by Shados · · Score: 4, Informative

      Thats why it used to be referred to as a recommendation, instead of standard (lots of discussions around it, though i think the likes of ISO and whatsnot now consider W3C stuff as actual standards).

      That said, if you ever tried to implement anything from the W3C, its full of holes, inconsistencies, ambiguous parts, things "left to the implementator", and all around, Microsoft's OOXML may have been a lousy ISO standard, but it sure would fit right in anything the W3C ever published.

      The only reason it kindda works, and that so many browsers seem to implement it, is because the likes of those working on Firefox, Safari, etc, kind of agree on stuff they don't like or the standard doesn't dictate. That also makes IE8 look worse than it actually is (not that its not awful, but in a few (very few) cases web developers will complain about things on which IE8 is actually right, and Firefox is wrong, but Safari, and Chrome are wrong the same way).

      Its not just HTML/CSS/whatever. The XQuery specs for example, are just as bad.

    2. Re:What kind of a "standard" is this? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm sure I'm missing something here -- what is it?

      If it makes you feel any better IE 9 is 100% Microsoft compatible ... the most Microsoft compatible browser under development.

    3. Re:What kind of a "standard" is this? by Jahf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What an awful example. FTP is a nearly completely static protocol with no defined presentation layer for user interaction. On the other hand HTML5 is not even a completed standard yet and is almost entirely focused around creating user interactivity with the data.

      What you are missing is this ... FTP doesn't correlate to HTML5. FTP correlates to HTTP. HTML5 would correlate more with the concept of the GUI to utilize FTP. Of which there are MANY completely different examples, none of which work perfectly for all situations. If you want to compare FTP to something regarding the web, then make comments about how well your web browser complies with the ability to communicate with a web server. In which case pretty much all browsers will be compliant.

      --
      It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
    4. Re:What kind of a "standard" is this? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Informative

      Technically ... neither is IE9. This article seems to fail in pointing out that it just compared a browser still in the preview phase to other browsers that are released.

      The "released" browsers are:

      Google Chrome 7.0.517.41 beta
      Firefox 4 Beta 6
      Opera 11.00 alpha (build 1029)
      Safari Version 5.0.2 (6533.18.5)

      The only one which doesn't have "beta" or even "alpha" in its name is Safari. So probably that one is actually released.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  5. My first suspicion by snsh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Did Microsoft just manage to pull an OpenOfficeXML with the HTML5 standard?

  6. Tried with latest chromium by HelloKitty2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just tried with latest chromium, it passwed all random tests I clicked on, that the tested chrome failed on.

  7. The test is vastly incomplete... by Dreadrik · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...according to the test developers.

    According to wired:

    Run IE9 against other aspects of HTML5 and the browser would be decidedly behind its competitors. IE9 lacks support for Web Workers, drag-and-drop features, SVG animations and the File API, all of which are vital components for building useful web applications, and all of which enjoy considerable support in other browsers.

  8. +/- tolerances by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a CSS guy, this means I find other browsers infuriating. Now that we have Webfonts I want to render ever piece of text with fonts instead of graphics...but getting a banner to just the right size is often impossible without a fractional font size. As a normal user, it means Firefox more often than not looks "wrong," because it's far enough ahead of the curve to be out front alone.

    This is the web, not desktop publishing. If you want pixel perfect rendering 100% of the time generate a PDF or PostScript file (or Flash). While CSS has certainly improved the visuals, the sites I like the best are ones that actually still useful when I use lynx/elinks to visit them (e.g., Daring Fireball, Ars Technica).

    While I'm a fan of good design, you have the wrong mind set when creating a site if you want the above IMHO. Even in engineering physical things there, are some +/- tolerances; you need to have some "give" in your designs and I think it's true with HTML as well. All of this advanced CSS is nice, but after a certain point you're into the realm of "control freak" designers.

    Please remember: web site != desktop publishing. If your layout can't handle a few pixel offset here or there, then it's veered into the realm of "control freak" country.