IE8 to use Standards mode by default

Published by Dave | Filed under Web Design, Browsers

Much uproar was caused a few weeks ago when Microsoft announced that IE8 would use the IE7 rendering engine by default, however it seems as though they’re back tracking on that decision and IE8 will now render as IE8 without the need for any trigger.

Amazingly, it actually seems as though Microsoft have taken on board what web developers have been saying and have actually listened to our view point.

I’ve understood why Microsoft decided to implement this meta trigger in order to ensure that they didn’t “break the web” in the same way that IE7 did but the way they were proposing certainly wasn’t the answer especially considering that the jump from IE7 to IE8 should be extremely small compared with the the IE6 to IE7 improvements.

Rendering IE8 as IE7 would have divided web development even further as we’d have forever had some developers using standards and some, even in years to come, still using the IE7 rendering engine.

This move is a great victory for web standards and is a huge step forward in writing code once and it working on all the major browsers.

Well done Microsoft for listening and eventually making the right decision.