Acid3: Challenging the Browser Makers

On March 3rd the Web Standards Project (WaSP) announced the release of Acid3, the latest in a line of tests designed to expose flaws in the implementation of mature Web standards in Web browsers. By making sure their software adheres to the test, the creators of these products can be more confident that their software will display and function with Web pages correctly both now and with Web pages of the future.

The Acid3 Test is designed to test specifications for Web 2.0, and exposes potential flaws in implementations of the public ECMAScript 262 and W3C Document Object Model 2 standards. Collectively known as DOM Scripting, it is these technologies that enable advanced page interactivity and power many advanced web applications such as web-based email and on-line office applications.

As a series of 100 mini-tests, Acid3 has already been found to expose flaws in all tested browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. WaSP hopes that Acid3 will prove useful to browser makers during the development of future versions of their products.

Acid3 Browser Test

Acid3 is the third in a series of test pages written to help browser vendors ensure proper support for web standards in their products.

Acid3 is primarily testing specifications for “Web 2.0″ dynamic Web applications. Also there
are some visual rendering tests, including webfonts. Here is the list of specifications tested:

  • DOM2 Core
  • DOM2 Events
  • DOM2 HTML
  • DOM2 Range
  • DOM2 Style (getComputedStyle, …)
  • DOM2 Traversal (NodeIterator, TreeWalker)
  • DOM2 Views (defaultView)
  • ECMAScript
  • HTML4 (<object>, <iframe>, …)
  • HTTP (Content-Type, 404, …)
  • Media Queries
  • Selectors (:lang, :nth-child(), combinators, dynamic changes, …)
  • XHTML 1.0
  • CSS2 (@font-face)
  • CSS2.1 (‘inline-block’, ‘pre-wrap’, parsing…)
  • CSS3 Color (rgba(), hsla(), …)
  • CSS3 UI (‘cursor’)
  • data: URIs
  • SVG (SVG Animation, SVG Fonts, …)

Does your browser comply with the standards? Make it take the Acid3 test.

I ran the test on my most used browsers, and here’s the somewhat mediocre scores:

  • Firefox 2.0.0.12 – 50 / 100 (Failed 50 tests)
  • Opera 9.26 – 46 / 100 (Failed 54 tests)
  • Safari 3.04 – 39 / 100 (Failed 61 tests)
  • Internet Explorer 7 – 12 / 100 (Failed 88 tests)
  • Internet Explorer 6 – 11 / 100 (Failed 89 tests)

I haven’t tested Firefox 3 yet, so if you are please let me know how it does. The test page should look like this by the way…

Acid3 Browser test

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2 Comments on “Acid3: Challenging the Browser Makers”

  1. ..]The clickjacking technique “gives an attacker the ability to trick a user into clicking on something only barely or momentarily noticeable,” explained a warning on the homepage of the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or CERT. “Therefore, if a user clicks on a web page, they may actually be clicking on content from another page.”..]

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