Microsoft released a Beta Release of Internet Explorer 8 today. I have not downloaded it yet, but from everything I’ve read it should be W3C compliant and sport some new features found on other browsers, which should reduce some of the MS haters arguments. I strongly support the current MS strategy of embracing standards, it makes building solutions on MS technology much easier and makes the IT worlds a better place. I will post more after I get my hands on it. I use both IE(6&7) and Mozilla based browsers, depending on what I’m doing and what UI I want for any given task. So I really don’t get too wrapped up in the discussion about which browser is best, no matter how often Joe Healy tries.

Another interesting tidbit is that is that it will default to Acid2 default mode by default and will have three modes as MS states in this press pass:

“Internet Explorer 8 has been designed to include three rendering modes: one that reflects Microsoft’s implementation of current Web standards, a second reflecting Microsoft’s implementation of Web standards at the time of the release of Internet Explorer 7 in 2006, and a third based on rendering methods dating back to the early Web. The newest rendering mode is forward-looking and preferred by Web designers, while the others are present to enable compatibility with the myriad sites across the Web that are currently optimized for previous versions of Internet Explorer.”

Here is a deeper investigation of the impacts of the three rendering modes:

 ”When IE8 eventually ships, it will have three rendering modes, two of which are the already familiar “quirks mode” and “(not so) standards mode.” In an IE team blog entry, IE Platform Architect Chris Wilson revealed a third mode that can be invoked by developers:

1. “Quirks mode” remains the same, and compatible with current content.
2. “Standards mode” remains the same as IE7, and compatible with current content.
3. If you (the page developer) really want the best standards support IE8 can give, you can get it by inserting a simple <meta> element.

This third mode will use a <meta> tag to specify that a page should use the behavior of a specific browser version. To get IE8 really-standard-this-time-we-mean-it behavior, a page will include an element like <meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=8″ />. That says that a page should use IE8’s behavior—and should use it even in IE9, IE10, or any future version. The first two modes will continue to use the doctype switch to choose between them.”