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Forums - PC Discussion - Ur favorite internet browser...

SamuelRSmith said:
TWRoO said:

I don't quite understand what happened.

What does linktest failed mean?

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I think my Firefox got 71/100 (assuming it is on default settings, but I don't really know what that entails so it might not be)

I tried on IE and the page messed up and it seemed to end at 5/100

 

 Basically, the Acid3 test tells the browser to do specific tasks, and it ranks the browser's performance (out of a hundred) on how well it performed the said tasks.

I believe that Opera (version 10a) is the only browser that can currently achieve 100/100 ranking, though I wouldn't be surprised if the latest Firefox BETA could do the same.

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As for what the tests are, they're basically testing different aspects of the browser's renderer, there is a set of standards, or a "rule book" set out by the W3C which gives guidelines on how browsers should render different things, and how web designers should write their pages.

The idea is that, if everyone followed these standards, that end-users will be able to get the same experience browsing the web no matter what platform they're on, or what browser they use.

This works well in theory, but Microsoft are notorious for not meeting the standards with IE. This means that if web-designers were to follow the W3C then their websites may not end up working as intended on IE. As IE has the largest marketshare of web browsers, web designers stick to just getting it working on IE rather than following standards.

This, of course, makes the pages less viewable in other browsers - it's a dirty trick, set forth by Microsoft, to try and keep IE's market dominance.

Your post was going great until the last sentence. From what I've seen MS has been improving their compliance (and consequently their Acid test results). While they do take longer than other developers to do that, I think it shows that there's not any big conspiracy there. If anything they're just less worried about it since they have the most market share.

Internet Explorer 8 runs Acid1 and Acid2 perfectly I believe.

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

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SamuelRSmith said:
Pellefant said:

Opera for 10 years here:)
Also...is there an Opera 10 out? My update can't find it...

 

Edit: nevermind, it's an alpha.

 

 Still, give it a shot. It works very well for an Alpha build, and offers some nice new features (spell checker being the most helpful, to me).

Just run it alongside your stable build, but I've found it to be stable enough (it hasn't crashed on me, yet), to use it as my primary browser.

 Okay, I downloaded it and are using it now. It's fast:)



@NJ5

But you have to ask yourself: why so slow?

They have, by far, the greatest amount of resources out there to develop the browser, and yet the latest version of IE can only pass two tests that other browsers have all been able to pass for the past couple of years now?

Are we going to have to wait until IE10 before it passes A3? And by then Opera, Chrome, Firefox, etc, will all be working towards/already passing the Acid4 test (if there is one by then, that is).

What's more, Microsoft sites themselves work particularly bad on other browsers when compared to IE (I rarely get passed the loading-circle-thing in the center of the screen on some browsers before giving up and it instantly loading on IE). Windows Live Messenger, up until recently, forced you into loading IE whenever you clicked on something, regardless of what your default browser is.

And, let's be frank, it's not like Microsoft haven't got anything to gain from stuffing IE down our throats has it? It can use it to push it's Live services (Live search being default, isn't it?), and I wonder just how many users have MSN as their homepage. It's also good for keeping users on Windows computers, if the only software they're used to, is only available on Windows (well, it's out on some other OSs but it's a dated version).

It's not like Microsoft hasn't got into any trouble about these kinds of practises before, especially when it comes to Internet Explorer.



You may have noticed that I Ninja Edited my post a few minutes ago to add:

"If anything they're just less worried about it since they have the most market share."

I think that's why they're slow. They don't have that much incentive to be faster. If Firefox hadn't taken so much market share from IE I doubt there would be many people working on it.



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

Can someone give me a link to an Opera download... I want to try it (Opera 9... I don't go for alpha/betas, however reliable they are)



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I suppose that would explain some of it. Afterall, we were stuck on v6 for years. But, now, it seems like they're releasing a new version every 2 years, or so.

Perhaps eroding marketshare has lead to a pick up in development, but I don't think it's put them entirely in the clear, more "our bullshit tactics weren't working, let's try working on the bloody thing".



TWRoO said:
Can someone give me a link to an Opera download... I want to try it (Opera 9... I don't go for alpha/betas, however reliable they are)

 

 http://www.opera.com/



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Firefox without a doubt



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