12 replies to this topic

[m@tt]

http://www.anomalous...8/03/06/acid-3/

The Acid Test has just released v3, and with it a few surprises.

Out of the major released browsers, Firefox 2 comes out top with 52%, with Opera at 46% (though it crashed when I tried) and Safari at 39%. At the bottom, IE5.5 (14%) is the top IE browser!

And it gets worse for IE, they've also tested the beta browsers, and Safari 3.1 (90% and top by a mile), Opera 9.5 and Firefox 3 have all made huge improvements, whilst IE8's first beta has managed to crawl up to 17%.

So, looks like we're still in for more crappy IE standards then, even if IE8 does have this default standards thing. Yay for Microsoft

[Jeeves]

Ha ha, thats a classic.
Perhaps its time they released an engine as a standard instead of specs people can choose not to follow (until they get sued, in which case they can pass ACID2 in under a weeks work). It would have to be open-source, run smoothly on anything, and actually work. You know, those things that make Webkit the best.
Because seriously, browser developers don't seem to give a rats arse about their engine. Web browsers are only seen as devices to render to web by web developers, and not browser manufacturors. Ok, when it was released, IE was better than anything else. So was Gecko, and still beats some, but someones decided "we're better than IE, lets work on adding extensions now instead!" IE has gone the way of increasing print, tab and RSS support because these are marketable as features than {display: inline-block;}, Opera works hard on making everything work better, under the guidance of the guy who wrote CSS in the ifrst place, but nobody cares dispite it being the best browser (Until someone makes a Webkit one for Win that isn't Safari), and Safari's essentially just Webkit, with some buttons. If nobody wants to work on their engine, just damn well support the OS one, then when someone else can be bothered, exchange source. How many features appeared between Khtml and Webkit splitting and rejoining? More than in the last few years of Gecko.

[Ash]

Does any of this actually matter to anyone except browser developers?


This isn't me being sarcastic or facetious...I genuinely wonder, is there ever a situation I'm likely to encounter when my browser's conformity to the ACID tests will actually affect my internet experience?

[m@tt]

Not really. Web Developers should test their sites on all browsers, and you often need hacks to get sites to work in IE, and from the handful of small sites I've done, IE has been the most problematic browser. So the amount of incompatible sites should be really low, buts thats because developers have had to fix all the problems IE causes. However, some amateur web developers will create incompatible sites.

[Kravvitz]

Yes, the point is to make browsers handle the code in web pages more uniformly.

You could be very surprised about how much time I and other web developers put into working around browser inconsistencies.

No, this won't matter to your average web surfer, but it matters a lot to me and other web professionals.

Edited by Kravvitz, 15 March 2008 - 07:59 PM.

[Jeeves]

Para, its like giving someone all the freshest produce from all the finest markets from across the globe, and asking them to cook you a meal. They have all the tools they need, they can create a masterpeice.
Thats in a perfect world. Non-conformance in browsers is like then going, I'm a Vegan. I'm lactose intollernt in a big way. I refuse to eat anything that doesn't come in a microwavable container. No gluten. Your options are now very limited.
Or for another comparisan, its like painting the next masterpeice, then someone changing it to poo smeared on canvas that looks a different size to each viewer, so you can never make it look like more than poo smeared on a canvas.
Standards mean you have the tools to do what you want, and make things fantastic. When people don't comply to these, you're much more limited in what you can do that won't sometimes break.
I've seen hundreds of broken sites which have damaged my experience as an internet user. And in most cases, browser non-complience is the problem.

[Ash]

I must be naive or ignorant then. Because I've never encountered a broken site. Or if I have I generally attribute it to the site being wankily coded more than my browser being at fault...

Your analogies were a bit off, but I think I get the idea.

Although if you standardise your browsers to that degree...why bother having multiple browsers at all?

[Bart]

why bother having multiple browsers at all?

other qualities, such as:
- rendering speed / performance
- interface
- extra features
- development speed

[Jeeves]

Well thats kinda what I said before; Webkit is by far the best engine out there, and I think it should be more widely adopted. However, I don't use Safari as a main browser, I use Opera. If Opera's ease of use was transfered to Safari, I probably would use it more. There are two levels of user experience here, interaction with the browser in all its features and faux glory, and what the browser loads and interprets. Ones controlled by personal taste, the others defined by standards. For this reason, they'll always be lots of browsers as people like different things, its just a shame that however well IE is intergrated with Windows, or how many plugins you can get for firefox, that many browsers perform poorly at the level of actually loading content for the user to browse, because I've always held the firm belief thats what browsers were for.
For those who haven't already tried to break it, Safari 3.1 is out now too, and its looking very hot with a 93 on the Acid3 scale. Look out for Opera-like SVG goodliness, font embedding, and the develop menu (preferences to enable).

Also, browsers are kinda at fault for a lot of wankily coded stuff...

[Blodo]

Coding websites for different browsers is like trying to cook a meal for a vegan, a cowboy and a cannibal that they will all eat it in delight.

Sarcastic sentences aside, it is truly gonna be a cold day in hell when all browsers support all standards in the same uniform way. I say that because, by the rules of capitalism it just doesn't compute to address the development time of webdesigners who will continue to develop websites anyhow, nevermind the time or pressure or problems involved. I put it to you that if the webdesigners went on strike (not that it's even remotely possible), nobody would give a shit for one thing and a whole lot of people would charge double for their webdesign services during the strike instead, rather than opting for their own personal ease of work. Why cowtow to people who won't deny your shit service when you can instead try to market the browser to an audience who couldn't be bothered less by CSS properties, but will be swayed by features such as shiny buttons and the ability to skin the browser.
It's like the problem of everyone still using PHP4 three years after v5 is out. There is just no reason to be bothered for the people who don't give two shits about the code or the imporvements if they are not immediately visible to them (like script speed). Even Revora only got upgraded recently, despite the fact that it should've been running PHP5 since day one. But then again, like I said nobody cares about the developers. One will quit in frustration and ten more will take his place.

/rant

Edited by Blodo, 24 March 2008 - 03:52 AM.

[Jeeves]

Heres another fun surprise; Opera and Webkit have both passed ACID3 in the last 24hours. Both need work still, but bloody hell, the best two browsers out there passing within 23 days of the test being announced is damn impressive.

Unfortuately, 23 is probably also the number of months before IE passes, and the latest news from Firefox is that they're still obsessed with addons and unlikely to wake up to the fact that although Gecko was cool in the 1990's, but so was Phil Collins.

For a browser designed to be lightweight and standards complient, to counter Mozillas bloatware and IE's incapability, its about time they started working on standards complience rather than adding bloatware, but then, whats the betting IE will pass before FF stop putting development off to work on their addons? And I know its an OS project, and pointless widgets may be more fun, but the project seems to have lost all its original direction, and if they can't be bothered working on it, its about time they just adopted Webkit. IE may suck, but at least they can be arsed to put their energies into trying to suck less instead of preaching their now-former glory.

[m@tt]

I really need to have a proper go with Opera, haven't gotten used to the GUI when testing it. Firefox crashes too much on my laptop (not full crashes, but it stops responding for 20s) and uses up far too much CPU when displaying Flash (especially painful when viewing videos). Some of it is probably my pc, but it's annoying nonetheless, though much better than the slow and lethargic IE7.

[Jeeves]

Opera's GUI is customisable as they come (wherelse would FF get the idea from?). The default layout for 9.5 builds is a bit more IE7-ey, but go nuts on the customising, and write your own buttons if there isn't the one you want. I like playing with beta's, but the stable is very stable.