Close
Subscribe
Recent Comments
Recent Headlines
Most Popular
Recent Readers
Latest Headlines
Acid 3 Test

The Acid 3 Web Browser Showdown: Browse vs. Everything Else

by Giovanni Glass  March 4, 2008 6:29 pm  Permalink
2220 views  3 Comments  Filed under:  , , , , ,

The new Acid 3 browser test was released on the web yesterday. The acid tests are designed to test various aspects of web browsers for standards compliance. You may know of the Acid2 test. This is a test that draws a deceptively simple looking smiley face. To browser developers, this was the face of hell. The two most dominant browsers, Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2, have yet to release an update that renders Acid2 correctly. Firefox 3 and IE8 will support Acid2, but it has been three years since the test was released. Thankfully, Safari 3 and Opera 9 support Acid2. If it took over three years to make browsers compliant to Acid 2, how long will it take to be compliant with Acid3? How do the browsers of today stack up? How does the OLPC XO laptop play in all this? Experience says we should give up, pack our bags and go home. But as our tests show, there’s hope yet.

The Contenders

Test Setup

  • Vista Ultimate 64bit with Service Pack 1
  • MacOS 10.5.2
  • OLPC XO-1 G1G1 edition 

The Test

The Acid3 test performs 100 JavaScript, DOM, CSS, SVG and corner case tests with the browser. The test has a progress meter that ranges from 0 to 100. 100/100 represents full compliance. The result is displayed as the test runs. Here’s the reference render.

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7 currently has the greatest market share at 43%. IE7 fixed many HTML & CSS bugs, added tab browsing and an improved security model. How does it do?

Result: 12/100 (we think…)

The result is disappointing. It’s hard to make out, but the result seems to say 12/100. It has no resemblance to the reference render.

Opera 9.26

Opera 9 is a fast and lean browser with a built-in email client, bit-torrent client and widget support. It passes Acid2 and was one of the first to do so. Does it pass Acid3?

Result: 46/100

Firefox 2

Firefox is an open-source browser that is based on the Gecko core. It has tab browsing, good standards support and support for 3rd party plug-ins, but it doesn’t pass the Acid2 test. How does it do with Acid3?

Result: 50/100

Half of the test passes. Considering Firefox 2 was based on the Gecko 1.8.1 core which branched back in late 2006, this is a decent result.

Safari 3

Safari is based on source code from Konquerer’s KHTML engine. It runs on Windows and Mac and supports tab browsing. How does it do?

Result: 39/100

The result is better than IE7 but worse than Opera 9.26. This browser is currently shipping in the recently released Mac OS 10.5 and downloadable for Windows.

Browse (OLPC)

Browse’s core engine is based on Gecko 1.9 beta. So the result should be somewhere between Firefox 2 and 3.

Result: 55/100

Not bad. This is the best result yet - on any computer.

Opera 9.12 (OLPC)

This browser was donated by Opera Software. It’s based on an older version of Opera 9. In many ways, it’s faster than Browse, supports tabs and acts like a traditional browser. You can also download and upload files without going through Sugar’s journal.

Result: 46/100

The result is identical to the current desktop version of Opera 9.26

So far the results have been underwhelming. The future of web 2.0 websites seems bleak. What about the browsers of tomorrow? Next we look at the new beta & developer builds.

Firefox 3 pre4

Firefox 3 is currently in beta. The core is based on Gecko 1.9.

Result: 67/100

That’s a 17 point jump from Firefox 2. That number may increase before the final release.

Opera 9.5 beta

Opera 9.5 is shaping up to be a very fast browser especially in terms of DOM and Javascript.

Result: 65/100

We have a big 19 point jump over Opera 9.2. 

Safari Webkit

Safari Webkit is making big strides towards Acid3.

Result: 87/100

We have a monstrous 48 point jump. We are also starting to see some color instead of gray boxes.

Apple iPhone

The iPhone uses a mobile version of Safari. We were unable to grab a screenshot. We do have a result however.

Result: 39/100

Conclusion

The browsers of today don’t do well with Acid3. Half of them don’t support Acid2 yet. But the browsers are on their way to support Acid2 and starting to support Acid3. Firefox 3 and IE8 will support Acid2 once released. As for the XO, it scores well in Acid3. What does it mean for children using the OLPC? Websites that make use of animations, AJAX and other dynamic features will almost be guaranteed to work. We can safely assume that if it works with Firefox on the desktop, chances are it will work in Browse.

On the Apple iPhone, 3rd party application support is currently unsupported. They have an SDK in the works. In the meantime, Apple has been recommending vendors to build web-based applications. The XO has a similar situation. To build large, collaborative, social applications, a website-based application is necessary. As a web developer, I feel assured that whatever works in Firefox, will work on the XO (excluding Flash and Java), although I have doubts with the availability of Internet connectivity in remote locations.

A major complaint with G1G1 owners is that the XO doesn’t come with Flash installed. Flash-based sites and video websites like Youtube don’t work. The XO comes with an open source Flash player called Gnash. It supports some Flash features but is lacking key features such as MP3 and video playback. Even if it did support those features, the XO is limited in memory and processor speed. What works with Flash websites on the desktop won't necessarily work well on the XO. Flash Player 9 can be installed on the XO. But for many people who have installed it have seen that performance is slow and is prone to crash.

A big feature of Flash is vector drawing. Browse supports Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an XML based vector drawing language. When paired with JavaScript, SVG can be used to draw line art and animations. Many web-based games based on SVG can look just as nice as bitmap-based graphics. A mix of both when used judiciously can create a visual experience that looks Flash-like.

As the Acid2 & 3 tests show, Browse is capable of rendering complex websites that use JavaScript, transparent PNG, SVG and XHTML. In the next release build of the OLPC, Update.1, we shall see some major updates including a newer build of Gecko in Browse. We're hoping to see Browse's rating of 55/100 inch closer to match Firefox 3's result.

5
Average: 5 (4 votes)
Your rating: None

If you like this post then please consider subscribing to our RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

AddThis Feed Button

Comments (3)

March 5, 2008 10:13 pm
Comment by Tani (not verified)

You have to keep in mind that these tests were meant to fail browsers, while ensuring the tests themselves are valid and conform to existing specifications. Thus, at the outset, no browser can be expected to do well.

That said, I've been informed that WebKit has gone up once more to 90% on the Mac builds.

Also, IE8, Microsoft's up-and-coming browser, comes in with 17 points, despite completely passing Acid2. There's room for improvement. Granted, it is an early beta of a product that will likely not be released until 2009 or later.

March 6, 2008 6:22 am
Comment by momendo
I'm really impressed with Webkit. When they release the next version, the real winners will be Mac users and iPhone users. IE8, well, Microsoft's a victim of their own making. Just because you've have the biggest market share is no excuse to let their browser lapse in featureset. I think they're trying to save face now. Too little, too late. 8)
March 7, 2008 3:09 pm
Comment by Boris (not verified)

Actually, Gecko 1.8.1 branched off 1.8, which branched off the development trunk in August 2005. There are very few DOM and CSS support differences between 1.8 and 1.8.1: all that work was happening on trunk. So with Firefox 2 you're basically looking at a rendering engine that's almost 3 years old now...

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
                                __  __   ____  
                               |  \/  | |  _ \ 
  _ __  __   __   ___   _   _  | \  / | | |_) |
 | '__| \ \ / /  / __| | | | | | |\/| | |  _ < 
 | |     \ V /  | (__  | |_| | | |  | | | |_) |
 |_|      \_/    \___|  \__,_| |_|  |_| |____/
Enter the code depicted in ASCII art style.

olpcusers.com is not endorsed, sponsored or affiliated with the OLPC Foundation.
OLPC and its various marks are trademarks of the OLPC Foundation.

Copyright © 2008 olpcusers.com All Rights Reserved.
Advertise  Terms of Use  Privacy Policy  Contact