Internet Explorer 8 first browser with full CSS 2.1 support?

January 29, 2009 · by Haavard

According to Microsoft, "E8 RC1 has the most complete implementation of the CSS 2.1 specification in the industry".

We have heard big promises from Microsoft in the past that they have not delivered upon, but recently they have found incentives to play nice and actually follow through on their promises.

If this really signals action rather than mere words, congratulations to Microsoft!

However, while these words from Microsofts are promising, there may be some problems as well. Daniel Glazman comments that some work still remains before Microsoft can claim the CSS 2.1 crown:

Full CSS 2.1 complete support is cool but it must be said that "full CSS 2.1 support" does not mean anything yet. CSS 2.1 is not yet a W3C Recommendation and it does not have an approved full Test Suite yet. Microsoft has submitted a rough 7,000 CSS 2.1 tests to the CSS WG but these tests need review before becoming official.

In the comments, James Hopkins points out some problems as well:

I'd argue that many of those 7,000 test cases are surfeit and unneccessary. For example, they have around 50 test cases specifically testing an absolutely positioned element that is offset to the left, and some are actually invalid.

If Microsoft's claims are based on invalid tests, one can hope that this is merely an error on their part. Normally one would not attribute to malice what could equally well be attributed to mistakes, but knowing Microsoft's history, we should keep scrutinizing their every move, and every claim. "Errors" have historically turned out to be conscious decisions on Microsoft's part to undermine open standards and competition in the market.

Readers' comments 5

Left under the original article, as archived.

AuxThursday, January 29, 2009 9:49:03 AM
Let's hope for the better! And also I hope that with release IE8 there will absolutely NO users of IE6-! They all must die in pain! (:
Michael BaptistaThursday, January 29, 2009 10:02:40 PM
It would be benneficial for Microsoft (and, seeing as how they're trying to support a standard, other web browsers) to be exhausitive in theses tests. Like was said above, CSS 2.1 hasn't been finalized yet. Not knowing with absolute certainanty what CSS 2.1 will be, it'd be better for IE 8 to test the unusual situations mentioned above while still not yet having been given a 1.0 release, than have to issue a patch a few months down the road (or even worse, ignore the issue).

Of course, very few would be surprised if Microsoft somehow implemented the standard in their own way and broke the standard, but it's worth it to be cautiously optimistic once in a while.
Michael BaptistaThursday, January 29, 2009 10:09:56 PM
Aux:

You're forgetting about all the non-XP/Vista/7 users. Also, plenty of businesses use IE6 on their terminals/workstations because it's what came with the computer, and they don't want to waste the time upgrading.
lucideerThursday, March 19, 2009 8:26:51 AM
Also some businesses and institutions still recommend all their users use IE6 for their intranet sites - mine does, and there are genuine problems with other browsers, even IE7!! They have limited support for Safari 2.1 as there are many Mac users, but no support for Linux browsers at all - it's truly awful.

As for IE8 and CSS, according to this (and others) they have no plans to fully support CSS 2.1
Unregistered userTuesday, August 4, 2009 9:29:30 PM
Jake writes: @FrostDust: Unfortunately Microsoft has given official notice to customers and the industry that XP is the oldest supported OS by MS. I disagree with the idea that web developers should be held back by deprecated versions and more importantly, a single company's atiquated software offering. @lucideer: There is no valid argument for forcing intranet users to run old versions of IE. It automatically implies that funds/man hours are being diverted elsewhere thus resulting in a clear competitive disadvantage.