Type of site | Web standards test |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Owner | The Web Standards Project |
Created by | Ian Hickson |
URL | https://webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html |
Commercial | No |
Registration | No |
Launched | 13 April 2005 |
Current status | Online |
Acid2 is a webpage that test web browsers' functionality in displaying aspects of HTML markup, CSS 2.1 styling, PNG images, and data URIs. The test page was released on 13 April 2005 by the Web Standards Project. The Acid2 test page will be displayed correctly in any application that follows the World Wide Web Consortium and Internet Engineering Task Force specifications for these technologies. These specifications are known as web standards because they describe how technologies used on the web are expected to function.
The Acid2 tests rendering flaws in web browsers and other applications that render HTML. Named after the acid test for gold, it was developed in the spirit of Acid1, a relatively narrow test of compliance with the Cascading Style Sheets 1.0 (CSS1) standard. As with Acid1, an application passes the test if the way it displays the test page matches a reference image.
Acid2 was designed with Microsoft Internet Explorer particularly in mind. The creators of Acid2 were dismayed that Internet Explorer did not follow web standards. It was prone to display web pages differently from other browsers, causing web developers to spend time tweaking their web pages. Acid2 challenged Microsoft to make Internet Explorer comply with web standards. On 31 October 2005, Safari 2.0.2 became the first browser to pass Acid2. Opera, Konqueror, Firefox, and others followed. With the release of Internet Explorer 8 on 19 March 2009, the latest versions of all major desktop web browsers now pass the test. Acid2 was followed by Acid3.
Acid2 was first proposed by Håkon Wium Lie, chief technical officer of Opera Software and creator of the widely used Cascading Style Sheets web standard. [1] In a 16 March 2005 article on CNET, Lie expressed dismay that Microsoft Internet Explorer did not properly support web standards and hence was not completely interoperable with other browsers. He announced that Acid2 would be a challenge to Microsoft to design Internet Explorer 7, then in development, to achieve a greater degree of standards compliance than previous versions of Internet Explorer. The original Acid1 test had forced browser makers to fix their applications or face embarrassment; Lie hoped that Acid2 would do the same. [2]
Lie and a colleague, Ian Hickson, created the first draft of the test in February 2005. [3] Ian Hickson coded the final test in collaboration with the Web Standards Project and the larger web community. [2] [4] [5] [6] It was officially released on 13 April 2005 [7] and at that time, every web browser failed it spectacularly. [8]
On 23 April 2005, Acid2 was updated to fix a bug that made the mouth appear too close to the nose. [9] [10] After several complaints, the test was again updated in January 2006 to remove a test for unpopular SGML-style comments that were never widely implemented. In browsers that do not implement SGML-style comments, the original test displayed the word "ERROR" on the bottom part of the face. [3]
In March 2008, Ian Hickson released Acid3 as a follow-up to Acid2. While Acid2 primarily tests CSS, Acid3 focuses more on JavaScript and other "Web 2.0" technologies. [11]
In July 2005, Chris Wilson, the Internet Explorer Platform Architect, stated that passing Acid2 was not a priority for Internet Explorer 7, describing the test as a "wish list" of features rather than a true test of standards compliance. [12] In December 2007, Microsoft announced that all the changes required to pass Acid2 would be made available in Internet Explorer 8, but that the changes would not be turned on by default, meaning that IE8 would not actually pass the test. [13] [14] The concern was that switching to a new behavior would cause too many problems in web pages expecting Internet Explorer's old, non-compliant behavior. Then in March 2008 Microsoft released IE8 beta 1 and turned on the changes by default after all. [15] James Pratt, product manager for IE8, explained that this decision was made so that "developers can spend more time building features and cool stuff, and less time just trying to tweak their sites across different browsers." [16]
Another unresolved standards compliance issue caused IE8 beta 1 to fail if not all elements of the test were hosted from the same server. [17] [18] [19] In August 2008 Microsoft released IE8 beta 2, which resolved the issue. [20] As of that beta, however, standards mode is not turned on by default for pages loaded in the "Intranet Zone". This zone is active for pages loaded via UNC paths, named addresses without dots (like http://mysite/), and sites that bypass the proxy settings. [21] As such, IE8 will not pass the Acid2 test if loaded in these cases. [22]
Acid2 tests a variety of web standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium and the Internet Engineering Task Force. With the exception of CSS 2.1, all web standards tested were codified before the year 2000. [23] [24] [25] [26] CSS 2.1 was a candidate recommendation at the time of Acid2's release, [27] and was still a candidate recommendation as of 23 April 2009. [28]
Specifically, Acid2 tests these functions: [29]
Because Acid2 is not a comprehensive test, it does not guarantee total conformance to any particular standard. A variant of the Acid2 test that does not test for data URI support is also available from the Web Standards Project. [29]
A passing score is only considered valid if the browser's default settings were used. Actions such as changing font sizes, zoom level, and applying user stylesheets can break the display of the test. This is expected and is not relevant to a browser's compliance. [38]
The following browser settings and user actions invalidate the test: [38] [39]
If rendered correctly, Acid2 will appear as a smiley face below the text "Hello World!" in the user's browser, with the nose turning blue when the mouse cursor hovers over it. By the end of March 2009, the current versions of every major web browser passed the test. However, at the time of the test's release, every browser failed it. [8] The images below illustrate the various rendering errors of the most popular browsers when Acid2 was released on 13 April 2005.
The following is a list of releases noting significant releases of applications that passed the test. New applications that have passed Acid2 since their first official release are not included in the timeline.
Date | Browser | Availability | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
27 April 2005 | Safari | private build [40] | |
18 May 2005 | iCab | private build [41] | This build was made available to registered iCab users on 20 May 2005. |
4 June 2005 | Konqueror | private build [42] | |
6 June 2005 | iCab | public build [41] | Whether this version of iCab truly passes the test or not was questioned because it displays a scrollbar on the test page. [43] The CSS specification states that Acid2 correctly rendered should not have a scrollbar, [44] but also says that "there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances" to ignore this requirement. [45] [46] |
6 June 2005 | Safari | source code available [47] | WebKit, the underpinnings of Safari, was made open source on 6 June 2005. When Safari was run with this latest version of WebKit, it passed the Acid2 test. |
31 October 2005 | Safari 2.0.2 | official release [48] [49] | Included in Mac OS X 10.4.3. First officially released web browser to pass test. |
29 November 2005 | Konqueror 3.5 | official release [50] | First Linux-compatible browser to pass the test, although it did not hide the scrollbar. |
7 December 2005 | Prince 5.1 | official release [51] | First non-web browser to pass test. |
10 March 2006 | Opera 9 Development build 8249 | public weekly build [52] [53] | First Microsoft Windows-compatible browser to pass the test and also the first Linux-compatible browser to pass the test including hiding the scrollbar. A public beta was released on 20 April, also successful. [54] [55] |
28 March 2006 | Konqueror 3.5.2 | official release [56] | Updated to hide the scrollbar. [57] [58] |
11 April 2006 | Mozilla Firefox | public nightly build [59] | The "reflow refactoring" nightly builds, whose code was branched from the Gecko 1.9/Firefox 3.0 trunk, pass Acid2. |
24 May 2006 | Opera Mobile for Symbian OS | private build [60] | First mobile browser to pass test. |
20 July 2006 | OmniWeb 5.5 beta 1 | public build [61] [62] [63] | OmniWeb switches its rendering engine to WebKit, the same rendering engine used in Safari which already passed the Acid2 test |
20 June 2006 | Opera 9.0 | official release [64] | |
06 August 2006 | hv3 | source code available [65] | |
17 August 2006 | iCab 3.0.3 | official release [66] | First public release that hides the scrollbar. |
6 September 2006 | OmniWeb 5.5 | official release [61] | |
8 December 2006 | Mozilla Firefox, Camino, SeaMonkey | public nightly build [67] | Reflow refactoring branch is merged into main Gecko trunk. Firefox, Camino, and SeaMonkey trunk builds now pass Acid2. |
5 March 2008 | Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 | public build [68] | Beta 1 passes the test when hosted at www.webstandards.org, but fails the test when hosted at webstandards.org or acid2.acidtests.org. [18] |
17 June 2008 | Mozilla Firefox 3.0 | official release [69] [70] | Mozilla Firefox 3.0, 3.5, and 3.6 pass the Acid2 test. |
27 August 2008 | Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 | public build [71] | Beta 2 and later pass the test unless it is hosted from the Intranet Zone. [20] [22] |
2 September 2008 | Google Chrome 0.2 beta | public build [72] | |
14 October 2008 | Flock 2.0 | official release [73] | |
11 December 2008 | Google Chrome 1.0 | official release | |
19 March 2009 | Internet Explorer 8 | official release [74] | |
27 October 2009 | SeaMonkey 2.0 | official release [75] | |
18 November 2009 | Camino 2.0 | official release [76] |
Internet Explorer is a retired series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were used in the Windows line of operating systems. While IE has been discontinued on most Windows editions, it remains supported on certain editions of Windows, such as Windows 10 LTSB/LTSC. Starting in 1995, it was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year. Later versions were available as free downloads or in-service packs and included in the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) service releases of Windows 95 and later versions of Windows. Microsoft spent over US$100 million per year on Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, with over 1,000 people involved in the project by 1999. New feature development for the browser was discontinued in 2016 and ended support on June 15, 2022 for Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel (SAC), in favor of its successor, Microsoft Edge.
A browser war is a competition for dominance in the usage share of web browsers. The "first browser war," (1995–2001) consisted of Internet Explorer and Navigator. Browser wars continued with the decline of Internet Explorer's market share and the popularity of other browsers, including Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge and Opera.
Håkon Wium Lie is a Norwegian web pioneer, a standards activist, and the chairman of YesLogic, developers of Prince CSS-based PDF rendering software. He is best known for developing Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) while working with Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau at CERN in 1994. He was the Chief Technology Officer of Opera Software from 1998 until the browser was sold to new owners in 2016.
Trident is a proprietary browser engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer, developed by Microsoft.
Tantek Çelik is a Turkish-American computer scientist, currently the Web standards lead at Mozilla Corporation. Çelik was previously the chief technologist at Technorati. He worked on microformats and is one of the principal editors of several Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) specifications. He is author of HTML5 Now: A Step-by-Step Video Tutorial for Getting Started Today (ISBN 978-0-321-71991-1).
Windows Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is a web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on October 18, 2006, as the seventh version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 7 is part of a long line of versions of Internet Explorer and was the first major update to the browser since 2001. It was the default browser in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, as well as Windows Embedded POSReady 2009, and can replace Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, but unlike version 6, this version does not support Windows 2000, Windows ME, or earlier versions of Windows. It also does not support Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or later Windows Versions.
Microsoft developed 11 versions of Internet Explorer for Windows from 1995 to 2013. Microsoft also developed Internet Explorer for Mac, Internet Explorer for UNIX, and Internet Explorer Mobile respectively for Apple Macintosh, Unix, and mobile devices; the first two are discontinued but the latter runs on Windows CE, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone.
The Web Standards Project (WaSP) was a group of professional web developers dedicated to disseminating and encouraging the use of the web standards recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium, along with other groups and standards bodies.
In computing, quirks mode is an approach used by web browsers to maintain backward compatibility with web pages designed for old web browsers, instead of strictly complying with web standards in standards mode. This behavior has since been codified, so what was previously standards mode is now referred to as simply no quirks mode.
Windows Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is the eighth and, by now, discontinued version of the Internet Explorer web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 19, 2009, as the successor to Internet Explorer 7. It was the default browser in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
The Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project that checks a web browser's compliance with elements of various web standards, particularly the Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript.
Internet Explorer 9 or IE9 is the ninth version of the Internet Explorer web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 14, 2011, as the ninth version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 as a major out-of-band version that was not tied to the release schedule of any particular version of Windows, unlike previous versions. It is the first version of Internet Explorer not to be bundled with a Windows operating system, although some OEMs have installed it with Windows 7 on their PCs. Internet Explorer 9 is the last version that is called Windows Internet Explorer. The software was rebranded simply as Internet Explorer starting in 2012 with the release of Internet Explorer 10.
Web typography, like typography generally, is the design of pages – their layout and typeface choices. Unlike traditional print-based typography, pages intended for display on the World Wide Web have additional technical challenges and – given its ability to change the presentation dynamically – additional opportunities. Early web page designs were very simple due to technology limitations; modern designs use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript and other techniques to deliver the typographer's and the client's vision.
In computing, version targeting is a technique that allows a group of users to use some advanced software features that were introduced in a particular software version while allowing users accustomed to the prior versions to still use the same software as if the new features were never added to the software. It is a way to ensure backward compatibility when new software features would otherwise break it.
This is the version history of Internet Explorer.
The HTML5 draft specification adds video
and audio
elements for embedding video and audio in HTML documents. The specification had formerly recommended support for playback of Theora video and Vorbis audio encapsulated in Ogg containers to provide for easier distribution of audio and video over the internet by using open standards, but the recommendation was soon after dropped.
The Arena browser was one of the first web browsers for Unix. Originally begun by Dave Raggett in 1993, development continued at CERN and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and subsequently by Yggdrasil Computing. Arena was used in testing the implementations for HTML version 3.0, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Portable Network Graphics (PNG), and libwww. Arena was widely used and popular at the beginning of the World Wide Web.
In web development, the CSS box model refers to how HTML elements are modeled in browser engines and how the dimensions of those HTML elements are derived from CSS properties. It is a fundamental concept for the composition of HTML webpages. The guidelines of the box model are described by web standards World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifically the CSS Working Group. For much of the late-1990s and early 2000s there had been non-standard compliant implementations of the box model in mainstream browsers. With the advent of CSS2 in 1998, which introduced the box-sizing
property, the problem had mostly been resolved.
A compatibility mode is a software mechanism in which a software either emulates an older version of software, or mimics another operating system in order to allow older or incompatible software or files to remain compatible with the computer's newer hardware or software. Examples of the software using the mode are operating systems and Internet Explorer.
The CSS Working Group is a working group created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1997, to tackle issues that had not been addressed with CSS level 1. As of December 2022, the CSSWG had 147 members.
About 19 minutes and 15 seconds through the video, Alex Mogilevsky, a member of the IE team, points at a picture of the Acid2 test improperly rendered and states "The video in the bottom is an IE7 version of smiley face...What you're looking at is actually IE8. It is what it looks currently in IE8 and it will look exactly like this when we ship IE8 because we are not breaking any compatibility, and this is a compatible mode of IE8. And, uh, most of the web relies on particular behavior including particular incorrect behavior, so the incorrect behavior will still be there unless the new content wants IE to be in standards-compliant mode, and then they will ask us, and then we will show perfectly standard picture."
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help){{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help)