

IE9 Outperforms Other Browsers for HTML5 Compliance - Garbage
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ie9_outperforms_other_browsers_for_html5_complianc.php

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pornel
IE team has been donating test cases to W3C, and of course they have 100%
compliance with test cases they've published.

Historically nobody wanted to write test cases. I think Microsoft/W3C now
discovered incentive to do so…

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9ec4c12949a4f3
Funny how chrome gets 100 on the acid3 and ie9 gets a 95.

[http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/benchmarks/Acid3/Default.h...](http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/benchmarks/Acid3/Default.html)

~~~
GrandMasterBirt
Funny indeed. I mean look, IE9 is definitely a BIG and most excellent step in
the right direction. If only it was supported on Win XP. If we can get rid of
IE8 and have the few top-notch browsers start going head-to-head with features
and getting updated regularly, it would be a good day indeed.

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DjDarkman
I don't think this so called test/benchmark has everything that is under the
HTML5 umbrella. It lacks WebSQLDatabase, Geolocation, offline storage,
CSS3(debatable) and many more.

So since this test is not complete, I call this article: false advertising.

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pornel
WebSQL has been dropped in favour of IndexedDB (both are separate specs).

Geolocation has been removed from the main HTML5 spec.

CSS3 is not HTML5 and that fact is not debatable at W3C.

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DjDarkman
> CSS3 is not HTML5 and that fact is not debatable at W3C.

HTML5 is like AJAX, it's just an umbrella term in reality. When you hear "AJAX
library" you probably think of a library that does a __lot more __than just
HTTP requests. Same goes for HTML, it's _almost_ useless without some CSS.

> Geolocation has been removed from the main HTML5 spec.

InnerHTML wasn't in the spec originally, but everyone used/had it anyway
because it was a good idea.

> WebSQL has been dropped in favour of IndexedDB (both are separate specs).

It was dropped only from Firefox, just like h.264, but that didn't stop
anybody from using it. Some browsers have IndexedDB, some have WebSQL.
IndexedDB was just a work in progress last time I checked, WebSQL already had
existing implementations.

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pornel
> HTML5 is like AJAX

Yes, but we're talking about W3C documents using W3C terminology, not
colloquial misnomers.

> InnerHTML wasn't in the spec originally, but everyone used/had it anyway
> because it was a good idea.

I was mistaken about Geolocation. It hasn't been removed (as many other
similar features were), this one been developed as separate spec from the
beginning.

Separation of HTML5 and other HTML5-ish specs is decided by way W3C works,
internal politics, HTML group charter, and inter-dependencies between the
feature and rest of HTML. It doesn't mean that something was or wasn't a good
idea.

> It was dropped only from Firefox, just like h.264, but that didn't stop
> anybody from using it.

That's not related. W3C test suite covers W3C HTML5, not Firefox (and H.264 vs
Firefox is a completely different problem).

WebSQL suffers from very real problem — it has only one DB implementation,
which is SQLite. This means that sites will end up denending on that
particular SQL dialect with all its quirks (e.g. sqlite storage is weakly,
dynamically typed) and in long-term will require to be bug-compatible with
SQLite.

I encourage everyone not to use it, even if it's available now, because we'll
miss last chance to remove it.

(I love SQLite in my apps, but API for the web needs to be much smaller and
tighter than that to withstand decades of people copying & pasting code they
don't understand).

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abraham
Two important notes: current stable version of Chrome 7 so beta of IE9 should
be compared with Chrome 8. Say it takes 6 months for IE9 to go gold, in that
time Chrome stable will have had two more releases bringing it up to 9 which
will probably contain a number of enhancements to close the gape if not over
take IE9.

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GrandMasterBirt
Yea every time I look at MS's site, they compare apples to rotting discarded
oranges. "Look, our apples are quite superior!"

The charts are showing only the tests IE9 excel at, which is a fraction of the
picture.

The tests also compare IE9 vs current stable releases. I want to see that
comparison against beta releases.

Oh wait lets also write down what operating systems IE9 is compatible with:

Google Chrome: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX, Linux

Firefox: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX, *nix

Opera: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX, Linux

IE9: Windows Vista, Windows 7

Oh look IE9 runs on only the latest MS operating system. They don't even
support their own older OSes.

Lets not even get into the security aspects.

~~~
parenthesis
OS support is a little more nuanced than that.

The latest version of Firefox for OS X requires at least version 10.4
(released 2005). Ditto for Opera.

Google Chrome requires at least 10.5 (released 2007), and doesn't support PPC
(the transition to Intel was `completed' in 2007).

Windows Vista went to retail in 2007.

Firefox, Opera and Chrome all still work on Windows XP though.

~~~
msg
What fraction of the market is underserved by Firefox not working on OSX 10.3
and earlier?

Meanwhile what fraction is underserved by IE9 not working on Windows XP?

I have no objection to your numbers as long as we also compare apples to
apples and quantify the impact.

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FluidDjango
Why did ReadWriteWeb omit the needed subtitle:

"IE CSS3 compliance continues to bring up the rear"

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petsos
How come they didn't test a WebKit nightly as well? All other browsers are
either latest betas or alpha(!).

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tvon
That sure is an enterprise test runner they've got there, couldn't they come
up with something more like <http://html5test.com/> ?

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lwhi
This is very good, I'm glad the team have done such a good job - but I don't
think the IE team will manager to 'win back' developers unless IE9 can replace
IE6/7 and 8.

Ideally IE9 needs to fix the problems that the older legacy browsers created.
Because it can't be run on Windows XP, IE9 can only complement the mistakes
that were previously made.

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brudgers
My suspicion is that part of the motivation for IE9 is encourage upgrades from
XP. Otherwise, there isn't much of an economic basis for its development
because unlike Chrome, IE doesn't send every keystroke in the address bar to a
server for analysis.

~~~
lwhi
I agree - that's the main motivation .. but realistically, a lot of people
will stick with Windows XP.

Microsoft rarely seems to think that altruism can align with good business
sense, and I think it suffers because of this.

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bwooceli
HTML5 compliance is fine and good, but I'm mostly concerned with how often
I'll have to fix a broken layout grid etc.

If I hadn't checked myself into Compulsive Domain Buyers Anonymous already, I
would grab ie9hacks.com and ie9bugs.com

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staktrace
If you want to see how browsers stack up on _finalized_ web specifications, I
find <http://www.webdevout.net/> is the single best place to go.

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rimantas
What is IE9 score on <http://html5test.com/> ?

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bretthopper
Not that this test is official or anything, but IE9 beta gets 96. Preview 6
gets 106.

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DjDarkman
The chart shows: "Internet Explorer Preview 6".

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michael_dorfman
That's right, IE9 Platform Preview 6 is the release that was rolled out at the
PDC last week,

[http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-launches-
Internet-...](http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-launches-Internet-
Explorer-9-Platform-Preview-6/1288284973)

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famsam
Get back to me when IE passes a significant battery of Firefox-submitted
tests. W3C is owned by Microsoft at a time when Microsoft has lost all right
to call themselves a browser vendor for any purpose other than to harm the
browser market.

Get back to me when IE 9 runs on any of the thousands of machines in my
company, where Windows Vista/7 is a non-starter at least for the next two
years. Get back to me when it is able to run on any machine I have at home. It
never will. With the possible exception of Safari, every other browser tested
runs everywhere required, I think.

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portman
> W3C is owned by Microsoft

It is?

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alexknight
Microsoft has an interest and is a member of the W3C. They do not own them
though: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3c>

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StavrosK
In other news, record low temperatures were recorded in hell.

