6 ms·

IE9 Outperforms Other Browsers for HTML5 Compliance

31 points by Garbage 16y ago

DjDarkman 16y ago
The chart shows: "Internet Explorer Preview 6".
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  That's right, IE9 Platform Preview 6 is the release that was rolled out at the PDC last week, http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-launches-Internet-Explorer-9-Platform-Preview-6/1288284973 http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-launches-Internet-...
DjDarkman 16y ago
I don't think this so called test/benchmark has everything that is under the HTML5 umbrella. It lacks WebSQLDatabase, Geolocation, offline storage, CSS3(debatable) and many more. So since this test is not complete, I call this article: false advertising.
- pornel 16y ago
  WebSQL has been dropped in favour of IndexedDB (both are separate specs). Geolocation has been removed from the main HTML5 spec. CSS3 is not HTML5 and that fact is not debatable at W3C.
  - famsam 16y ago
    How convenient for Microsoft.
  - ez77 16y ago
    CSS3 is not HTML5 and that fact is not debatable at W3C. I don't understand: the ongoing efforts seem to be centralized at http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work
    - pornel 16y ago
      In marketing materials (like Apple's HTML5 showcase) "HTML5" is a buzzword that means any technology that makes cool things in a browser. However, W3C does not follow buzzwords. When W3C says "HTML5" it means http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/ http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/ CSS is developed by W3C, but it's a separate working group, and CSS is orthogonal to HTML5 (i.e. you can have 100% HTML5-conformant browser that does not support any CSS at all!)
  - DjDarkman 16y ago
    > CSS3 is not HTML5 and that fact is not debatable at W3C. HTML5 is like AJAX, it's just an umbrella term in reality. When you hear "AJAX library" you probably think of a library that does a lot more than just HTTP requests. Same goes for HTML, it's almost useless without some CSS. > Geolocation has been removed from the main HTML5 spec. InnerHTML wasn't in the spec originally, but everyone used/had it anyway because it was a good idea. > WebSQL has been dropped in favour of IndexedDB (both are separate specs). It was dropped only from Firefox, just like h.264, but that didn't stop anybody from using it. Some browsers have IndexedDB, some have WebSQL. IndexedDB was just a work in progress last time I checked, WebSQL already had existing implementations.
    - pornel 16y ago
      > HTML5 is like AJAX Yes, but we're talking about W3C documents using W3C terminology, not colloquial misnomers. > InnerHTML wasn't in the spec originally, but everyone used/had it anyway because it was a good idea. I was mistaken about Geolocation. It hasn't been removed (as many other similar features were), this one been developed as separate spec from the beginning. Separation of HTML5 and other HTML5-ish specs is decided by way W3C works, internal politics, HTML group charter, and inter-dependencies between the feature and rest of HTML. It doesn't mean that something was or wasn't a good idea. > It was dropped only from Firefox, just like h.264, but that didn't stop anybody from using it. That's not related. W3C test suite covers W3C HTML5, not Firefox (and H.264 vs Firefox is a completely different problem). WebSQL suffers from very real problem — it has only one DB implementation, which is SQLite. This means that sites will end up denending on that particular SQL dialect with all its quirks (e.g. sqlite storage is weakly, dynamically typed) and in long-term will require to be bug-compatible with SQLite. I encourage everyone not to use it, even if it's available now, because we'll miss last chance to remove it. (I love SQLite in my apps, but API for the web needs to be much smaller and tighter than that to withstand decades of people copying & pasting code they don't understand).
- AndrewDucker 16y ago
  The article links directly to the tests on W3.org - where they are clearly endorsed by the HTML Working Group. If you want tests to cover other areas then feel free to submit them, or encourage others to do so.
- johnmmix 16y ago
  Would seem to be more of a test of canvas than HTML5 in its entirity, given that over three quarters of the tests (179 out of 233) are canvas related. Also, I'm not sure how seriously I can take an HTML5 conformance report that doesn't actually validate correctly (<center> element!?): http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://test.w3.org/html/tests/reporting/report.htm&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0#result http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://test.w3.org/html/te...
StavrosK 16y ago
In other news, record low temperatures were recorded in hell.
pornel 16y ago
IE team has been donating test cases to W3C, and of course they have 100% compliance with test cases they've published. Historically nobody wanted to write test cases. I think Microsoft/W3C now discovered incentive to do so…
- AndrewDucker 16y ago
  Well, that should give other teams an incentive to write test cases, shouldn't it? Unless someone is saying that the MS-submitted ones are incorrect, I fully endorse their submission.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    Many of them were incorrect when first published (by Microsoft themselves) but I assume that's been fixed.
    - memoryfault 16y ago
      Source?
      - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
        http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/06/HTML5-Compliance-Dispute http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/06/HTML5-Compliance-Dispute quote: "While we are glad that Microsoft is keen on using test suites to measure standards compliance, these particular tests on MSDN only cover a very limited spectrum of capabilities, and statements about browser compliance made here are frankly misleading. The SVG-in-HTML tests cited by MSDN are known to be broken, do not conform to the HTML5 parsing rules or the DOM specification, and in fact make use of an IE bug. Microsoft's engineers know about this bug _and_ the fact that the test itself is wrong [1][2], so it is surprising that this test is touted as an important one in furthering interoperability between browsers. Firefox's beta builds, on the other hand, actually do have an HTML5 parser in place [3], and nightly builds [4] will pass legitimate tests for SVG-in-HTML parsing. Additionally, some of the CSS tests listed on MSDN are inaccurate, and browsers that actually pass these tests are not compliant with the standard. There is an official CSS3-selectors test suite where we pass all the relevant pieces [5] and we think that for web developers, sites like caniuse.com [6] are much more useful when discussing HTML5, CSS3, and SVG support in browsers. Mozilla will continue to contribute to open and fair test suites that adhere to the specifications in question [7], and encourage other browser vendors to do so as well."
FluidDjango 16y ago
Why did ReadWriteWeb omit the needed subtitle: "IE CSS3 compliance continues to bring up the rear"
famsam 16y ago
Get back to me when IE passes a significant battery of Firefox-submitted tests. W3C is owned by Microsoft at a time when Microsoft has lost all right to call themselves a browser vendor for any purpose other than to harm the browser market. Get back to me when IE 9 runs on any of the thousands of machines in my company, where Windows Vista/7 is a non-starter at least for the next two years. Get back to me when it is able to run on any machine I have at home. It never will. With the possible exception of Safari, every other browser tested runs everywhere required, I think.
- AndrewDucker 16y ago
  If Mozilla want to submit tests then there's nothing stopping them doing so.
  - famsam 16y ago
    I think they will be served just fine by improving their own compliance where it counts, which as I interpret these and other tests, is already better than IE's. Why go to great lengths to prop up such a sagging organization (w3c, Microsoft, take your pick)? It has never been beneficial in the past to do so. Microsoft has only historically materially supported browser standards at w3c when they were so severely behind they could not use their other monopolistic behaviors to destroy the browser market. w3c has to value the contribution other companies besides Microsoft in their real plans rather than just being Microsoft's rescue vehicle one year and their sword in the backs of the competition the next when they suddenly lose interest in open standards again and shut everything down because w3c thinks if Microsoft no longer thinks it is important no one else should either.
- portman 16y ago
  > W3C is owned by Microsoft It is?
  - famsam 16y ago
    In their behavior with respect to browser (and other standards), yes. Despite the supposed one company one vote model, generally every other company can be moving forward and if Microsoft signals thumbs down, it will come to a grinding halt. If Microsoft stops browser development, the w3c takes that as a sure sign that browsers are no longer important to anyone, which is fine, as long as w3 doesn't value the other memberships. whatwg was taken over by w3c as a desperate move on Microsoft's behalf and immediately put under a Microsoft chair despite their long history, and slowed down by years.
petsos 16y ago
How come they didn't test a WebKit nightly as well? All other browsers are either latest betas or alpha(!).
lwhi 16y ago
This is very good, I'm glad the team have done such a good job - but I don't think the IE team will manager to 'win back' developers unless IE9 can replace IE6/7 and 8. Ideally IE9 needs to fix the problems that the older legacy browsers created. Because it can't be run on Windows XP, IE9 can only complement the mistakes that were previously made.
- brudgers 16y ago
  My suspicion is that part of the motivation for IE9 is encourage upgrades from XP. Otherwise, there isn't much of an economic basis for its development because unlike Chrome, IE doesn't send every keystroke in the address bar to a server for analysis.
  - lwhi 16y ago
    I agree - that's the main motivation .. but realistically, a lot of people will stick with Windows XP. Microsoft rarely seems to think that altruism can align with good business sense, and I think it suffers because of this.
rimantas 16y ago
What is IE9 score on http://html5test.com/ http://html5test.com/ ?
- bretthopper 16y ago
  Not that this test is official or anything, but IE9 beta gets 96. Preview 6 gets 106.
abraham 16y ago
Two important notes: current stable version of Chrome 7 so beta of IE9 should be compared with Chrome 8. Say it takes 6 months for IE9 to go gold, in that time Chrome stable will have had two more releases bringing it up to 9 which will probably contain a number of enhancements to close the gape if not over take IE9.
- GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
  Yea every time I look at MS's site, they compare apples to rotting discarded oranges. "Look, our apples are quite superior!" The charts are showing only the tests IE9 excel at, which is a fraction of the picture. The tests also compare IE9 vs current stable releases. I want to see that comparison against beta releases. Oh wait lets also write down what operating systems IE9 is compatible with: Google Chrome: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX, Linux Firefox: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX, *nix Opera: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX, Linux IE9: Windows Vista, Windows 7 Oh look IE9 runs on only the latest MS operating system. They don't even support their own older OSes. Lets not even get into the security aspects.
  - parenthesis 16y ago
    OS support is a little more nuanced than that. The latest version of Firefox for OS X requires at least version 10.4 (released 2005). Ditto for Opera. Google Chrome requires at least 10.5 (released 2007), and doesn't support PPC (the transition to Intel was `completed' in 2007). Windows Vista went to retail in 2007. Firefox, Opera and Chrome all still work on Windows XP though.
    - msg 16y ago
      What fraction of the market is underserved by Firefox not working on OSX 10.3 and earlier? Meanwhile what fraction is underserved by IE9 not working on Windows XP? I have no objection to your numbers as long as we also compare apples to apples and quantify the impact.
tvon 16y ago
That sure is an enterprise test runner they've got there, couldn't they come up with something more like http://html5test.com/ http://html5test.com/ ?
staktrace 16y ago
If you want to see how browsers stack up on finalized web specifications, I find http://www.webdevout.net/ http://www.webdevout.net/ is the single best place to go.
bwooceli 16y ago
HTML5 compliance is fine and good, but I'm mostly concerned with how often I'll have to fix a broken layout grid etc. If I hadn't checked myself into Compulsive Domain Buyers Anonymous already, I would grab ie9hacks.com and ie9bugs.com

31 points by Garbage 16y ago

DjDarkman 16y ago

The chart shows: "Internet Explorer Preview 6".

michael_dorfman 16y ago
That's right, IE9 Platform Preview 6 is the release that was rolled out at the PDC last week, http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-launches-Internet-Explorer-9-Platform-Preview-6/1288284973 http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-launches-Internet-...

DjDarkman 16y ago

I don't think this so called test/benchmark has everything that is under the HTML5 umbrella. It lacks WebSQLDatabase, Geolocation, offline storage, CSS3(debatable) and many more. So since this test is not complete, I call this article: false advertising.

pornel 16y ago
WebSQL has been dropped in favour of IndexedDB (both are separate specs). Geolocation has been removed from the main HTML5 spec. CSS3 is not HTML5 and that fact is not debatable at W3C.
- famsam 16y ago
  How convenient for Microsoft.
- ez77 16y ago
  CSS3 is not HTML5 and that fact is not debatable at W3C. I don't understand: the ongoing efforts seem to be centralized at http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work
  - pornel 16y ago
    In marketing materials (like Apple's HTML5 showcase) "HTML5" is a buzzword that means any technology that makes cool things in a browser. However, W3C does not follow buzzwords. When W3C says "HTML5" it means http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/ http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/ CSS is developed by W3C, but it's a separate working group, and CSS is orthogonal to HTML5 (i.e. you can have 100% HTML5-conformant browser that does not support any CSS at all!)
- DjDarkman 16y ago
  > CSS3 is not HTML5 and that fact is not debatable at W3C. HTML5 is like AJAX, it's just an umbrella term in reality. When you hear "AJAX library" you probably think of a library that does a lot more than just HTTP requests. Same goes for HTML, it's almost useless without some CSS. > Geolocation has been removed from the main HTML5 spec. InnerHTML wasn't in the spec originally, but everyone used/had it anyway because it was a good idea. > WebSQL has been dropped in favour of IndexedDB (both are separate specs). It was dropped only from Firefox, just like h.264, but that didn't stop anybody from using it. Some browsers have IndexedDB, some have WebSQL. IndexedDB was just a work in progress last time I checked, WebSQL already had existing implementations.
  - pornel 16y ago
    > HTML5 is like AJAX Yes, but we're talking about W3C documents using W3C terminology, not colloquial misnomers. > InnerHTML wasn't in the spec originally, but everyone used/had it anyway because it was a good idea. I was mistaken about Geolocation. It hasn't been removed (as many other similar features were), this one been developed as separate spec from the beginning. Separation of HTML5 and other HTML5-ish specs is decided by way W3C works, internal politics, HTML group charter, and inter-dependencies between the feature and rest of HTML. It doesn't mean that something was or wasn't a good idea. > It was dropped only from Firefox, just like h.264, but that didn't stop anybody from using it. That's not related. W3C test suite covers W3C HTML5, not Firefox (and H.264 vs Firefox is a completely different problem). WebSQL suffers from very real problem — it has only one DB implementation, which is SQLite. This means that sites will end up denending on that particular SQL dialect with all its quirks (e.g. sqlite storage is weakly, dynamically typed) and in long-term will require to be bug-compatible with SQLite. I encourage everyone not to use it, even if it's available now, because we'll miss last chance to remove it. (I love SQLite in my apps, but API for the web needs to be much smaller and tighter than that to withstand decades of people copying & pasting code they don't understand).
AndrewDucker 16y ago
The article links directly to the tests on W3.org - where they are clearly endorsed by the HTML Working Group. If you want tests to cover other areas then feel free to submit them, or encourage others to do so.
johnmmix 16y ago
Would seem to be more of a test of canvas than HTML5 in its entirity, given that over three quarters of the tests (179 out of 233) are canvas related. Also, I'm not sure how seriously I can take an HTML5 conformance report that doesn't actually validate correctly (<center> element!?): http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://test.w3.org/html/tests/reporting/report.htm&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0#result http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://test.w3.org/html/te...

StavrosK 16y ago

In other news, record low temperatures were recorded in hell.

pornel 16y ago

IE team has been donating test cases to W3C, and of course they have 100% compliance with test cases they've published. Historically nobody wanted to write test cases. I think Microsoft/W3C now discovered incentive to do so…

AndrewDucker 16y ago
Well, that should give other teams an incentive to write test cases, shouldn't it? Unless someone is saying that the MS-submitted ones are incorrect, I fully endorse their submission.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  Many of them were incorrect when first published (by Microsoft themselves) but I assume that's been fixed.
  - memoryfault 16y ago
    Source?
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/06/HTML5-Compliance-Dispute http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/06/HTML5-Compliance-Dispute quote: "While we are glad that Microsoft is keen on using test suites to measure standards compliance, these particular tests on MSDN only cover a very limited spectrum of capabilities, and statements about browser compliance made here are frankly misleading. The SVG-in-HTML tests cited by MSDN are known to be broken, do not conform to the HTML5 parsing rules or the DOM specification, and in fact make use of an IE bug. Microsoft's engineers know about this bug _and_ the fact that the test itself is wrong [1][2], so it is surprising that this test is touted as an important one in furthering interoperability between browsers. Firefox's beta builds, on the other hand, actually do have an HTML5 parser in place [3], and nightly builds [4] will pass legitimate tests for SVG-in-HTML parsing. Additionally, some of the CSS tests listed on MSDN are inaccurate, and browsers that actually pass these tests are not compliant with the standard. There is an official CSS3-selectors test suite where we pass all the relevant pieces [5] and we think that for web developers, sites like caniuse.com [6] are much more useful when discussing HTML5, CSS3, and SVG support in browsers. Mozilla will continue to contribute to open and fair test suites that adhere to the specifications in question [7], and encourage other browser vendors to do so as well."

FluidDjango 16y ago

Why did ReadWriteWeb omit the needed subtitle: "IE CSS3 compliance continues to bring up the rear"

famsam 16y ago

Get back to me when IE passes a significant battery of Firefox-submitted tests. W3C is owned by Microsoft at a time when Microsoft has lost all right to call themselves a browser vendor for any purpose other than to harm the browser market. Get back to me when IE 9 runs on any of the thousands of machines in my company, where Windows Vista/7 is a non-starter at least for the next two years. Get back to me when it is able to run on any machine I have at home. It never will. With the possible exception of Safari, every other browser tested runs everywhere required, I think.

AndrewDucker 16y ago
If Mozilla want to submit tests then there's nothing stopping them doing so.
- famsam 16y ago
  I think they will be served just fine by improving their own compliance where it counts, which as I interpret these and other tests, is already better than IE's. Why go to great lengths to prop up such a sagging organization (w3c, Microsoft, take your pick)? It has never been beneficial in the past to do so. Microsoft has only historically materially supported browser standards at w3c when they were so severely behind they could not use their other monopolistic behaviors to destroy the browser market. w3c has to value the contribution other companies besides Microsoft in their real plans rather than just being Microsoft's rescue vehicle one year and their sword in the backs of the competition the next when they suddenly lose interest in open standards again and shut everything down because w3c thinks if Microsoft no longer thinks it is important no one else should either.
portman 16y ago
> W3C is owned by Microsoft It is?
- famsam 16y ago
  In their behavior with respect to browser (and other standards), yes. Despite the supposed one company one vote model, generally every other company can be moving forward and if Microsoft signals thumbs down, it will come to a grinding halt. If Microsoft stops browser development, the w3c takes that as a sure sign that browsers are no longer important to anyone, which is fine, as long as w3 doesn't value the other memberships. whatwg was taken over by w3c as a desperate move on Microsoft's behalf and immediately put under a Microsoft chair despite their long history, and slowed down by years.

petsos 16y ago

How come they didn't test a WebKit nightly as well? All other browsers are either latest betas or alpha(!).

lwhi 16y ago

This is very good, I'm glad the team have done such a good job - but I don't think the IE team will manager to 'win back' developers unless IE9 can replace IE6/7 and 8. Ideally IE9 needs to fix the problems that the older legacy browsers created. Because it can't be run on Windows XP, IE9 can only complement the mistakes that were previously made.

brudgers 16y ago
My suspicion is that part of the motivation for IE9 is encourage upgrades from XP. Otherwise, there isn't much of an economic basis for its development because unlike Chrome, IE doesn't send every keystroke in the address bar to a server for analysis.
- lwhi 16y ago
  I agree - that's the main motivation .. but realistically, a lot of people will stick with Windows XP. Microsoft rarely seems to think that altruism can align with good business sense, and I think it suffers because of this.

rimantas 16y ago

What is IE9 score on http://html5test.com/ http://html5test.com/ ?

bretthopper 16y ago
Not that this test is official or anything, but IE9 beta gets 96. Preview 6 gets 106.

abraham 16y ago

Two important notes: current stable version of Chrome 7 so beta of IE9 should be compared with Chrome 8. Say it takes 6 months for IE9 to go gold, in that time Chrome stable will have had two more releases bringing it up to 9 which will probably contain a number of enhancements to close the gape if not over take IE9.

GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
Yea every time I look at MS's site, they compare apples to rotting discarded oranges. "Look, our apples are quite superior!" The charts are showing only the tests IE9 excel at, which is a fraction of the picture. The tests also compare IE9 vs current stable releases. I want to see that comparison against beta releases. Oh wait lets also write down what operating systems IE9 is compatible with: Google Chrome: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX, Linux Firefox: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX, *nix Opera: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX, Linux IE9: Windows Vista, Windows 7 Oh look IE9 runs on only the latest MS operating system. They don't even support their own older OSes. Lets not even get into the security aspects.
- parenthesis 16y ago
  OS support is a little more nuanced than that. The latest version of Firefox for OS X requires at least version 10.4 (released 2005). Ditto for Opera. Google Chrome requires at least 10.5 (released 2007), and doesn't support PPC (the transition to Intel was `completed' in 2007). Windows Vista went to retail in 2007. Firefox, Opera and Chrome all still work on Windows XP though.
  - msg 16y ago
    What fraction of the market is underserved by Firefox not working on OSX 10.3 and earlier? Meanwhile what fraction is underserved by IE9 not working on Windows XP? I have no objection to your numbers as long as we also compare apples to apples and quantify the impact.

tvon 16y ago

That sure is an enterprise test runner they've got there, couldn't they come up with something more like http://html5test.com/ http://html5test.com/ ?

staktrace 16y ago

If you want to see how browsers stack up on finalized web specifications, I find http://www.webdevout.net/ http://www.webdevout.net/ is the single best place to go.

bwooceli 16y ago

HTML5 compliance is fine and good, but I'm mostly concerned with how often I'll have to fix a broken layout grid etc. If I hadn't checked myself into Compulsive Domain Buyers Anonymous already, I would grab ie9hacks.com and ie9bugs.com