Soon after much outcry from developers and users, Microsoft is bowing to pressure and producing its new, Acid-2-compliant requirements mode the default in Net Explorer 8.Microsoft officials are attributing the alter in options to the organization wanting to live as much as the interoperability pledges that Microsoft made a couple weeks back. (Come on, men,
Office Ultimate 2007 Key! There is certainly absolutely nothing incorrect with saying the real reason you're doing a 180: Two of your core constituencies had been really angry.)In January, Microsoft;s IE team outlined its programs to add a “super-standards” mode to IE 8. That mode was set to be one of three supported in the next version of Microsoft;s browser. (The other two are “quirks” mode, which will be compatible with current IE pages and applications and a “standards” mode,
Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2007, which will be the same as what’s offered by IE 7 and “compatible with current content.”) In super-standards mode,
Office Pro 2007, early internal builds of IE eight passed the Acid2 standards tests, according to Microsoft.Microsoft originally planned to make the super-standards mode an opt-in choice and the IE 7 “standards” mode the default — claiming that by doing so, Microsoft would ensure better backwards-compatibility with existing Net sites and applications. But that decision angered those who felt Microsoft was shirking its commitment to make IE more standards-compliant.Don;t forget that Opera Software lodged an antitrust complaint against Microsoft in December for the Microsoft;s failure to make IE compliant with key Web requirements. Based on Microsoft;s March 3 press release, it looks like Opera;s (and/or other competitors;) complaints helped convince Microsoft to alter. Check out the quote from Brad Smith, Microsoft Senior Vice President and General Counsel:“While we do not believe there are currently any legal specifications that would dictate which rendering mode must be chosen as the default for a given browser,
Windows 7 Professional Key, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue,
Office Standard 2010,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel.”Inside the finish — regardless of why Microsoft actually is making this change — the decision to make standards mode the default in IE eight should make many happy. What it will mean to backwards compatibility should become evident quickly, as Microsoft is expected to start its private beta test of IE eight any day now, with a public beta to follow.