Everyone Passing The Acid Test?
One of the biggest and most frustrating problems for any web designer is the differing behaviour of different web browsers when it comes to rendering pages. These differences stem from how browser software supports various features and standards such as CSS, HTML, etc. Yet ensuring cross-browser compatibility is essential in terms of making web design both accessible and usable, and as Internet Explorer loses some of its dominant position the more competitive market means that catering for different browsers becomes even more important.
But while designers will still use tweaks and hacks to ensure web pages render as consistently as possible over different browsers, there’s similarly growing pressure for browser developers to ensure their software adheres to consistent standards and support. The Web Standards Project is a pressure group that aims to persuade and work with browser developers and make sure that their software provides sufficient support for the features web designers want to work with.
They provide the Acid2 test, which is the most widely accepted demonstration of whether a browser is “standards compliant” or not. It’s a single page which, if rendered correctly, will show a smiley face below the text “Hello World!” in the browser window, and the nose of the smiley face will turn blue when the mouse pointer hovers over it. Basically, if the browser follows W3C standards for HTML and CSS 2.0 it should render OK.
Except it’s never quite that easy, obviously. Internet Explorer has always struggled with the Acid2 test, with Internet Explorer 6.0 failing but also the more up to date Internet Explorer 7.0, which was supposed to be more standards compliant. What was more surprising to me was that Firefox (ver 2) also fails the test (if less severely than IE), given that it has a general reputation as being the “browser of choice” for the tech-savvy.
Firefox’s struggles are perhaps even more important given that Microsoft, long criticised for ignoring Web standards, have achieved Acid2 compliance with Internet Explorer 8. Internet Explorer 8 is not on public release yet, though you can download a Beta version, but an adherence to Web standards by Microsoft is a major move forward.
In fact, given that both Opera and Safari pass the Acid2 test, that would have left Firefox as the only major browser without Acid2 compliance. Luckily for Mozilla, it seems that their own new version beta for Firefox 3 also passes Acid2. Though to be fair I’ve had some problems getting Firefox 3 to a) install and b) correctly pass the test.
The positive news here is for web development as a whole though. We’re now looking at a situation where all major browsers, whether in release versions or next version betas, are acknowleding the importance of consistent web standards. Now, of course, the challenge for browser vendors is to compete to see which can be the first browser to pass the new Acid3 test!
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