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Why care about the browser "Acid Test?"

The Web Standards Project online Acid Test for web browser occasionally stirs up computer trade press interest, but few end-users understand what the topic means to them. The real issue less about the end-user experience and more about a cost savings campaign by developers who are frustrated over the lack of web site software standards. Also, some browser firms, like Opera, and their users, are frustrated by web sites that won't display properly because they are coded in closed proprietary formats.

As part of the campaign of opening the web, in April 2005 the Web Standards Project published a online test of the compliance of a web browser with software technologys standards. Any browser could match its software code agains the test and get instant results online whether it passed or not.

The test is really an effort to draw a line in the sand between compliance with open industry standards and exclusionary web sites based on closed proprietary formats. The team that prepared the Acid Test wrote, "Today, the Web Standards Project (WaSP) is putting the makers of Web browsers and Web design tools on notice by announcing Acid2, a test designed to expose flaws in the implementation of mature Web standards such as HTML, CSS, and PNG. By making sure their software adheres to the test, the creators of these products can be more confident that their software will display Web pages correctly.

Hakon Lie, chief technology officer for Opera, proposed the creation of the Acid2 test as a way to highlight the lack of support for some standard HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) features in Internet Explorer (IE) and other browsers. Lie is an expert in web standards. Opera develper Tim Altman has an update on progress with Opera 9, code named "merlin" and work on it to pass the Acid Test.

Fundamentally, the Acid test is about reducing developer costs. As a programmer, it is costly to develop multiple versions of a web site for a client because each browser has its own way of displaying the HTML code for each page. According to the Web Standards Project, the fractured browser market adds at least 25% to the cost of developing web sites. Some developers just give up and design to the lowest common denominator, but to the loss of competitive advantage for their customers because of less interesting websites and loss of key functions. Other developers load up their websites with multiple versions of code, one for each browser, and became bandwidth hogs. Finally, some designers give up on web standards altogether, and develop exclusively in proprietary environments. In response to these problems, The Web Standards Project (WaSP) was formed in 1998 with the goal of promoting core web standards and encouraging browser makers to do the same, thereby ensuring simple, affordable access for all.

The situation today isn't much better. According to the Web Standards Project,
Though today’s browsers support standards, tens of thousands of professional designers and developers continue to use outdated methods that yoke structure to presentation, in some cases entirely avoiding semantic structures and misusing (X)HTML as a design tool. Highly paid professionals continue to churn out invalid, inaccessible sites filled with structurally meaningless markup, huge image maps, excessively nested tables, and outdated detection scripts that cause the very usability problems they were originally intended to prevent.

Apple Computer's Safari was the first to pass the test last year. It took until March 2006, about a full year's worth of work, for Opera's developers to get to a point where it passed the test. The next question is "so what?" IDG, the trade press wire service, says that while that may earn the company bragging rights in the developer community, it's unlikely to convince more Web users to switch from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. They may be right.

If more browsers support the features in the test, designers will be able to create better sites. Developers often feel they can't use some available tools because they aren't supported in IE, the most widely used browser, Opera's Wie told IDG, "There's a reluctance for developers to use features that aren't widely supported. The least advanced browser holds things back," he said.

IDG reports that last year, Chris Wilson, a developer working for Microsoft on IE, wrote in a blog posting that Microsoft wasn't planning to ensure that IE7, the next version of IE that is currently available as a beta, could pass the Acid2 test. He describes the Acid2 test as a broad "wish list" of browser features that goes beyond standard CSS and HTML.

Will users switch browsers if it passes the Acid test? It isn't likely according to Iris Cremers, an analyst with Forrester Research who told IDG it is "a tough sell," adding, "that's not going to do the trick. There's really no novelty there," she said. A recent Forrester study showed that 59 percent of Web users in North America and 69 percent in Europe use IE. Despite the buzz around competitive browsers, last year just 13 percent of Web users in North America switched their browser, the study found.

Opera's support for the Acid Test is a clear message to developers that support for Opera on their web sites is less costly than support for other browsers. That's got to lead to competitive advantage for some of them, and it may make a difference in boosting market share for Opera.

Sidebar - The Acid Test Online