IE8 – the joy continues

In January 2008 Microsoft announced that if you wanted IE8 to operate in standards mode, a meta element must be inserted into the head of your document.

There was a huge uproar.

On 3rd March 2008, The Microsoft development team had a change of heart.

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.

Source

Today, Hakon Lie writes that Microsoft’s IE8 breaks this interoperability promise.

Interesting times again.

Date: 30 August 2008
Author: Russ Weakley
Category: News, Web, Web standards
Tags:

Comments so far

  1. Ben Buchanan says:
    August 30, 2008 at 4:06 pm

    Pretty much confirms my suspicion that the whole thing was more about protecting MS-based intranets than anything to to with the internet.

  2. Michael says:
    August 31, 2008 at 8:57 am

    Erm, what’s the problem? IE 8 renders by default, all INTERNET content in standards mode – whether in accessing it from home or in from a company’s intranet, but renders all INTRANETs by default in compatibility mode so as to ensure intranet content is supported and not broken. Now, I don’t know about you, but most intranets aren’t standards compliant and won’t be unless the IT/web department decides to upgrade – in which case they can make standards rendering the default for intranets by changing the IE 8 settings on all their machines. For the others, they can still have the IE6-style rendering but can take advantage of IE 8 standards mode when on the www – the internet.

    And I have to say, that article is a big Lie…

  3. Russ says:
    August 31, 2008 at 2:16 pm

    @ben: have to agree.
    @michael: a Microsoft beat up, you think?

  4. Technolojik says:
    September 1, 2008 at 4:14 pm

    Hello Michael

    are you sure? is that lie?

    thank you