More bad news from Microsoft. Despite the uproar caused when they originally suggested making developers opt in, to get standards compliance mode in Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) they've now quietly returned to this unwise strategy. So developers are now back where we were a year ago, before Microsoft backed away from this plan. It seems we're being reprimanded for not making all of our sites compatible with a browser that hasn't been officially released yet. Why didn't I fix my sites for IE8 Beta? Because I'd have had to fix them again for IE8 Beta 2. Why not for Beta 2? Because I'd have had to fix them for IE8 Release Candidate 1. You get the picture.  Microsoft has a history of making significant changes right before the official release of their products, so I'll be waiting until I see a finished version before I change anything. Here's a few choice quotes about the progress of Internet Explorer 8. IEBlog : Compatibility View Improvements to come in IE8

With IE8’s Beta 1 release, Microsoft demonstrated its commitment to interoperability by making the most standards-compliant default view for web pages IE’s default.

With IE8’s Beta 2 release, we introduced the Compatibility View button. This button enables savvy end-users to resolve compatibility problems they encounter with sites that rely on legacy IE behavior.

When users install Windows 7 Beta or the next IE8 update, they get a choice about opting-in to a list of sites that should be displayed in Compatibility View. Sites are on this list based on feedback from other IE8 customers: specifically, for what high-volume sites did other users click the Compatibility View button? This list updates automatically, and helps users who aren’t web-savvy have a better experience with web sites that aren’t yet IE8-ready.

I translate this progression of quote like this

1. We'll be standards compliant
2. We give you the choice of being standards compliant
3. We'll choose whether you're standards compliant or not for you

While they suggest that users will get to choose to opt out of this "compatibility list" on installation, how many users will select "review and modify each setting individually" on installation? I'd guess very few. This setting will theoretically also be in the preferences, but I'd be willing to bet few IE users will go looking for it there either. Microsoft says that they're taking this course of action because they became aware that:

"...large groups of people were having a less than great experience because they weren’t aware of the manual steps required to make certain sites work."

They were surprised that a new feature was not being properly used in a Beta product? Did it occur to them that fixing the problems with the Beta product would alleviate this issue? How about educating their users about their new feature? Apparently not. Why spend all this time and money to improve their product, and IE8 is a big improvement, if you're going to force it to replicate the behavior of its flawed predecessor?

Have you heard of Mozilla's Ubiquity? I think it's the beginning of something big.

Ubiquity is a Mozilla Labs experiment into connecting the Web with language in an attempt to find new user interfaces that could make it possible for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily.

It's going to change how people interact with the web. I don't know how exactly waht it's going to turn in to, but it's a project that I'm going to be watching.

I've logged close to thirty hours in Internet Explorer (IE) 8 in the last few weeks doing browser testing. The more I use it, the more I think to myself "why would you use Internet Explorer?" There are other, better choices. Here's a quick roundup of what's out there to choose from. Internet Explorer: Each version gets better, I'll grant you that, but that's about all I'll grant you. Even the soon to be officially released IE8 isn't going to stand up to Firefox, Opera, or any of the others listed below. It's a step ahead for IE, but not a big step. Improved security, improved rendering, improved standards compliance... sounds good, doesn't it? Let's look at it another way. The last place runner in the race for the perfectly compliant browser has made huge gains on his competitors... but hasn't caught any of them. Internet Explorer 8 will remind you of Internet Explorer 7. In fact it looks just like it.  As with other Microsoft programs, you have no choice of themes. It does have a few add-ons for functionality, most notably the web developer toolbar which has now been built into IE8. It is supported on the Windows operating system (OS) only. It does not support mouse gestures, a method of executing common commands (like page forward/backward, close tab, new tab) by moving the mouse the current web page, without using the toolbar or keyboard. Firefox: It has good web standards compliance and quick loading times. It's highly adaptable. I see just over 6,000 add-ons available on their site, and about 600 themes. Some of these would be for older versions, but it's till a high level of support for changing function and appearance to suit the user. It is supported on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Several add-ons are available which add mouse gesture functionality. Opera: This may be the hidden gem of the browser world. It's highly web standards compliant, quite fast, and comes with a lot of the features people add to Firefox built in. Mouse gestures, bookmark synchronization, RSS feed previews, and speed dial are all standard. It even allows for custom theming to change the appearance to suite you. It is supported on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD operating systems. Flock: Like social media like Flickr, MySpace, and Twitter? Flock has the benefits of the base installation of Firefox, with all the social media functions you'll need. It's based on their Firefox browser, but with social media in mind. Set it up and it will keep you connected to all of your social sites.  It has themes and add-ons available, but comes standard with a blog editor, photo upload functionality, feed reader, media bar and more. It currently doesn't support mouse gestures, even with an add-on, but it's a relatively new browser and I expect that to come allow later. Chrome: Produced by Google, Chrome is one of the fastest browsers you could choose. Along with good web standards compliance, that makes it a nice choice for the everyday Internet user. While it might not have the add-on base that Firefox does, it has everything the average user needs in a nice presentation. While it doesn't have theme capability, it actually doesn't really need it. Made in a very minimalist style, very little of the browsers is actually visible. What you see is the web page you want. Personally, I really like the ability to turn a tab into a solo page by just dragging it off the page. A very clever option. Currently only available on the Windows OS. Safari: Originally for the Mac, Safari is now available for Windows as well. With the good standards compliance in both versions, this browser advertises itself as the "fastest browser on any platform". While you could argue that other browsers have now surpassed it, you can't argue that it is very fast. While it doesn't come with much in the way of appearance customization, its clean appearance goes along way toward making up for that. While it isn't my favorite choice, it surpasses IE on just about every way measurable. That's not the whole list. There are other choices available. Take a look and I'm sure you'll find a browser with the features you want. Whether it's minimalist styling, hundreds or thousands of add-ons and themes, extremely fast loading, or all of the social media functionality you could want, there is a browser out there that has it. Give them a try, you'll find the one you that's right. Maybe you'll find more than one.

I finally installed IE8. It's time to starting making sure all my sites working in IE8 before it comes out this spring. I'm using Internet Explorer Collections to run Internet Explorer versions 5.5, 6, 7, and 8. Internet Explorer 5.5 isn't really necessary I suppose, but I was curious how it stacked up. It's doing about the same as Internet Explorer 6 in my testing. Internet Explorer 8 isn't as bad as I'd feared, but it's not as good as I'd hoped either. We'll see how the final version comes out.

I love Portable Apps. A very convenient way to take your tools with you. While they're great for when you're on the road, you know they aren't just for USB drives? You can install them on your hard-drive as well. Need to run two different versions of Firefox? Install one normally, and install the other as a portable. I've been testing sites with a Firefox screen reader called Firevox. Some of Firevox's shortcut keys conflict with my development plugins. That isn't a problem though, because I just setup a portable version on my hard-drive and installed Firevox there. Now I can run Firevox without a problem, and I didn't have to disable any shortcut keys.

CSS Tricks has a great post called Cutting Edge Browsers and Their Development Tools. I didn't know about the Opera's Dragonfly, I'll be trying that out soon. It's a very good comprehensive list that every web professional should see.

IE 6 actually had the best CSS support of any browser when it first came out... SEVEN YEARS AGO. - CSS-Tricks

Chris Coyier at CSS Tricks has written a very nice piece on IE6 CSS bugs. Anyone who's dealt with these will appreciate this list. Anyone who's fought with them and didn't know what they were will appreciate them more.

Despite early announcements that IE8 would default to displaying pages as if it were IE7, Microsoft is now announcing that it will default to Standards mode. This will alleviate the need for designers to opt out, by opting in as I've written about before. Microsoft Expands Support for Web Standards

Consistent with its efforts to promote further interoperability across the Web, Microsoft Corp. is now configuring the settings in Internet Explorer 8, the upcoming version of its browser, to render content - by default - using methods that give top priority to Web standards interoperability.

This is the best news I've heard from Microsoft in quite some time. I was really hoping this issue would be resolved before IE8 came onto the market, but I was holding little hope. They have in the past seemed more inclined to use their own proprietary standards than to "give top priority to Web standards interoperability". I'm happy top see that that wasn't the case here.

A List Apart: Articles: They Shoot Browsers, Don't They?

This is gobsmackingly audacious. Imagine a new version of Word that behaves exactly like the old version of Word unless the document it is processing contains a hidden instruction to unlock any new features. That's what Microsoft is demanding that web developers implement. Unless you explicitly say otherwise, IE8 (and IE9 and IE10, ad infinitum) will behave exactly like IE7.

I've been following rumors about this feature for awhile. I thought they were going to turn out to be incorrect. It seems too audacious even for Microsoft. Forcing designers to use proprietary code in order or IE to work correctly? I can't see how this won't blow up in their faces in some way. It's sure not going to earn them any good will.

I just thought this was interesting, and yes, I didn't know a browser could render some of those. 7 Character Sets You Didn’t Know Your Browser Could Render