Will IE8 “Break” the Web?

Last week Microsoft released a beta test version of their next generation Web browser, Internet Explorer 8. This new update offers one thing that will make Web developers cheer: considerably better standards compliance than previous versions. However, it has already generated considerable controversy because that very same standards compliance is breaking many Web sites that incorporate fixes or workarounds for problems in IE 6 and 7.

Microsoft’s answer is to provide an option for users to switch back to IE 7 compatibility mode by clicking an “Emulate IE7” button. This will render sites exactly the same as the current browser. However, as any usability expert can tell you, people are notorious for leaving browser settings in their default configurations. IE 8 users will likely not bother clicking a button to “fix” a Web site—they will simply blame the site for being “broken.”

It falls on the shoulders of Web developers to update their sites to add support for IE 8—or rather, to remove any special code to work around IE 6 and 7 bugs. The irony is that Web developers were forced to add those work arounds in the first place due to poor standards implementations in Microsoft’s earlier browsers.

In the long term, developers should applaud Microsoft for improving their browser, but in the short term both developers and users will suffer with a “broken” Web.