Artryst.com: Design by Gregory Tarnoff

Internet Explorer 8…now with more standards compliance

When I first wrote about IE8 and the new HTML 5 standard the plan was that by default IE8 was going to render in the IE7 mode unless you declared it to render in the new IE8 standards mode using a meta tag.

Today, Microsoft announced that this will not be the case. The new standards mode that render the Acid 2 Test with 100% accuracy will be the default mode. If you have an old site that breaks in the new IE8 you will have to go back and add the meta tag or adjust your server to allow for rendering under the older engine (aka quirks mode).

We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously.

Some speculation behind the change points to Opera’s complaint and the recent European Union fine of $1.3 billion dollars for anti-trust tactics by Microsoft, but like any good spin-meister they deny this.

We think that acting in accordance with principles is important, and IE8’s default is a demonstration of the interoperability principles in action. While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue. As stated above, we think it’s the better choice.

You can read the rest of the article discussing the various modes at the MSDN blog.