If you are an Android user, you should now notice a visual upgrade when visiting UAMobileWeb. Because the Android browser was built with WebKit, you will get the same high-quality browsing experience as iPhone users who visit UAMobileWeb.
WebKit is an open source browser engine that is the basis for Apple’s Safari web browser as well as the iPhone, Android, and a few other devices.
If you experience any problems on the Android platform, please let me know.
Since there is beginning to be a fair amount of buzz surrounding some of the upcoming browser releases, I thought I would take a moment to share some of the recent news that has begun spilling out on the Internet Explorer front since PDC.
IE general manager Dean Hachamovitch reports Microsoft is “…focusing on three very specific areas: performance, interoperability standards, and hardware acceleration.”
What does this mean?
Well, on the performance front at least some of the slated rendering-speed increases will be due to new technology which allows IE’s browser engine, Trident, to pipe text and graphics rendering through DirectX (older IE versions have used GDI). This means IE will be able to make use of the hardware acceleration in a computer’s GPU to ramp up things like streaming video performance and flash-based interfaces. Of course there is also javascript-parsing-speed increases, but all of the cool kids on Browser Street have been working on this front for quite some time – so this news hardly warrants dwelling on.
Regarding interoperability, there will reportedly be increased support for CSS3 selectors (yay!) as well as pledged support for the evolving technologies outlined in the HTML5 preliminary spec (audio/video/canvas support?).
More detailed information can be found at the following links:
Update: And now a word straight from the horse’s mouth – IE Blog: An Early Look At IE9 for Developers
Google announced yesterday on the their blog that today they would release a web browser called Google Chrome.
Today, Google Chrome is available for download.
It’s too early to tell what the implications of this will be on web designers and developers but it might be worth installing and taking for a spin.
For any of those who may have missed it from the more traditional channels, IE 8 Beta2 was released for public consumption this week. With many new features, it looks to be a sizable release. More info is available through the following resources:
IE 8 Public Beta Page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/
IE 8 Features Overview: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/features/
IE Blog (more information than you can shake a keyboard at): http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/
Over the weekend, Opera Software released the newest milestone of its browser, Opera 9.5. This is a completely new branch of the browser (Kestrel) and runs much more quickly than 9.2x (Merlin).
New features include:
Opera 9.5 Changelog (Windows) (The UI changes are really worth a read, especially the part about “Open with” command, spatial navigation highlighting, and Firefox style tab switching behavior, which I wrote about here.)
For the record, Opera 9.5 scores an 83 on the Acid3 test.
WebKit, the rendering engine behind Apple’s Safari web browser, has achieved a 100/100 on the rigorous Acid3 web standards test.
This makes WebKit the first open-source rendering engine to pass the test, with Opera the first browser to pass the test in a private development version. WebKit has more work to do on the test, however: rendering glitches and animation problems still exist, and the Acid3 test, while official released, has made some minor changes in the past.
A nightly build of WebKit which passes the test is available to Mac users here, with a Windows build to follow. The Safari web browser, which currently scores a 75/100 on the test, is available to both major platforms from Apple.
Although we said that IE8 Beta 1 passes the ACID2 test, some of you may be seeing results like the image above; we thought we should explain what’s going on. IE8 passes the official ACID2 test hosted on http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html. (Note, this seems to be a popular destination at the moment. You may have trouble reaching the site.) There are also a number of copies of this test around the net. One popular copy that I’ve seen of late is http://acid2.acidtests.org/ IE8 fails the copies of ACID2 due to the cross domain security checks IE performs for ActiveX controls. Since IE does not natively handle HTML content in the OBJECT tag, but rather uses IE’s rendering engine as an ActiveX to display this HTML content, the same cross domain security checks also apply…
The Web Standards Project (WaSP) today announced the release of Acid3, the latest in a line of tests designed to expose flaws in the implementation of mature Web standards in Web browsers. By making sure their software adheres to the test, the creators of these products can be more confident that their software will display and function with Web pages correctly both now and with Web pages of the future…
Read entire press release from WaSP.
Reference Rendering:
And now the Fail parade:
Camino 1.51 Mac OS 10.5
Firefox 2 Mac OS 10.5
Firefox 3 Mac OS 10.5
Internet Explorer 6 Windows XP
Internet Explorer 7 Windows Vista
Internet Explorer 7 Windows XP
Firefox 2 Windows XP
Firefox 3 Windows XP
Safari 3 Mac OS 10.5
Opera 9.24 Windows Vista
Edit: Since it’s not included in the screenshots above I tested the WinXP IE8 beta, and it appears it gets a score of (16/100).
Edit2: Charlie Reinehr points out that the new development build of Opera (build 9770) scores an admirable (64/100). Thanks to Charlie for pointing this out, and nice job Opera team!
As an additional aside, WebKit (the engine behind Safari) has a development build that is reported to score (90/100).
Microsoft has released the first beta of Internet Explorer 8.
It can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm
Also, here is the IE8 start page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie8/welcome/en/default.html
Be warned: The IE8 Beta overwrites your IE7 (or 6) installation.
Today, Microsoft has officially stated that they are changing IE8′s default behavior for rendering standards mode. Instead of making web developers opt in to use IE8′s standards mode, IE8 will now automatically render in this standards mode.
I’m glad that the IE Team listened to the community and decided to do the right thing. The fact that Microsoft heard our complaints and acted appropriately upon them speaks volumes to improving their credibility in the web community.
CNet reports today that Microsoft will soon be making a beta of IE8 available. From CNet:
Microsoft will shortly make available the test version of Internet Explorer 8, which is set for final release in the first half of this year.
The Web site ActiveWin on Monday published the contents of a beta invitation, which said Microsoft is nearing a launch date for Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, which will be available for download and testing.
