Thursday, March 6, 2008

Race to ACID3 Just Began

Just when you downloaded the latest beta of IE8 and thought the web was becoming a standard complaint world, the guys from Web Standards Project  just changed the rules of the game. The guys behind the famous ACID tests, called WaSP have just launched the latest version of their test called ACID3 and to no one's surprise, every browser out there fails the test.

Just like previous versions of the ACID2 test, with this version no browser seems to pass the test. About 3 years after the release of ACID2, Microsoft's IE8 passed the test and everyone clapped. But now to their sadness, they have to deal with ACID3 to claim they are standards compliant.

According to WaSP:

Acid3 goes beyond the CSS tests implemented by Acid2 and tests a browser’s DOM Scripting capability, as well as continuing to probe visual rendering of CSS, SVG and webfonts. Further information can be found on the Acid3 page, in the press release, or you can just go ahead and take the test.

Safari was the first web browser to pass the test, with the passing version 2.02 released on October 31, 2005. This time, the race has already begun and everyone from the browser development team wants to be the first to complete the ACID3. You can look at the current state of browser wars on ACID3 here. The latest build of Safari (Webkit) with 87% compliance is already the leader in this race. 100% compliance is really the finish point and you never know which team can suddenly use NOS and win the race.

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