death to firefox! long live opera!

alright, mozilla firefox seems to be sorely lacking in terms of its web standards support. not only does it fail the acid2 test, it even fails the original acid test! internet explorer 6 passes the original acid test, so it is arguably more standards compliant than mozilla firefox! *gasp* try the tests out for yourself. now, you might be asking yourself, i thought firefox was the best browser ever, how could this be? WRONG. the only web browsers that pass the acid2 test are safari, konqueror, icab, and opera. for the good version of safari, you need mac os x 10.4.x. icab, like safari, is also a mac-only browser. and konqueror is only for linux users that use the kde desktop instead of gnome. what about the 99.9% of people who use microsoft windows? isn’t there a web browser for them that passes the acid2 test and is standards compliant? why, yes, there is, but there is only one web browser that meets these exacting standards. and this browser is also cross-platform, for linux and mac os peeps to join in on the fun. opera 9.0 beta. yes, it is only beta software, not yet stable, still has bugs, it might crash your computer, make it burst into flames, and send spam email to aliens in outer space. but at least it can properly display the smiley face that you see when your browser passes the acid2 test! try getting that from internet explorer 7 beta 2 or mozilla firefox 1.5.0.2. i think not! so, from now on, everyone who reads this blog is LEGALLY REQUIRED to be using opera 9.0 beta. if you don’t use it, the punishment will be absolutely nothing, except the fact that you will wallow in your own misery and ineptitude. you won’t get to use widgets or mouse gestures or any of those other neat operatic features. and that, dear phrends, is punishment enough. now, you may have heard that there is a build of firefox that passes the acid2 test, but unfortunately, it is only an experimental modified 3rd-party build, and it isn’t even available to the public, and it still looks like it will be a long time before mozilla fixes this bug in firefox. here, for your bafflement, is the acid2 test and its reference rendering, encapsulated onto this blog using the magic of “iframes”. both sides should look the same if your browser passes the test.

now you may have noticed that you can use your mouse’s scroll wheel on the left iframe to mess it up in opera 9 beta, a bug which is not present in internet explorer or firefox. this is because it is still a beta version, and hopefully when the final release of 9.0 comes out, it will be fixed. it should be noted that konqueror and icab also had this same problem back when they announced they passed the acid2 test, so opera is not alone in this; safari is the only browser that actually did perfectly on the acid2 test when they announced it. the latest versions of konqueror and icab have it fixed so everything is perfect like in safari, so opera has just a little catching up left to do. in internet explorer, there is a much worse bug, where it doesn’t even display the correct page for the left iframe. but what would you expect from microsoft? quality? yeah right... but at least internet explorer passes the original acid test. firefox’s abject failure on that test can be traced directly to its usage of the inferior gecko rendering engine, which it inherited from the inferior browser netscape 6. the gecko rendering engine has improved a whole lot since netscape 6, and had many advancements and improvements, but unfortunately it still has quite a ways to go in terms of standards compliance. as the developer of the experimental modified version of firefox that passes the acid2 test noted, he had to make a whole lot of big fundamental changes in the source code, which might cause other things to stop working. the fact that firefox has so many extensions means that its developers have to play with kid gloves when they modify code, so as not to break anything. but firefox’s failure to pass the original acid test, which came out in 1997, is simply PATHETIC. they’ve had NINE YEARS to fix that bug in the gecko rendering engine, and STILL haven’t done JACK SQUAT! and to think, i have used firefox for 99% of my web browsing for the last 2 and a half years! what was i THINKING? everybody should use opera, unless you have mac os 10.4.x, in which case you should use safari. it’s about time to use a REAL web browser, not some piece of crap code job done by MICROSOFT (internet explorer 7 = complete garbage... M$ can take their activex controls and shove it) or AOL TIME WARNER (the people who started the so-called “mozilla foundation” that made firefox using netscape 6’s buggy source code... netscape was crap ever since ao-hell bought it out). it’s time to use OPERA. well, unless you have safari... but i don’t trust apple. they make ipods, which are a sham, and they recently switched from using powerpc cpus to using inferior intel cpus for their macintosh computers (if they had any brains they would have used amd cpus instead). and apple’s new “boot camp” program requires you to get windows xp, and doesn’t support linux. what a bunch of sellouts! so use OPERA. it’s from norway, dammit. a superior browser from the icy cold north of europe. just remember, it takes awhile for the file to melt after you download it, since the server is pretty much on the north pole.

update: i’ve only been using opera for a few hours and i already can’t stand it. i am so much in the habit of using mozilla firefox, i simply can’t stand using anything else. opera doesn’t duplicate the functionality of any of my favorite extensions, and i’ve realized why mozilla firefox is reluctant to embrace official web standards: firefox aims to properly display web sites that actually exist, made by fallible humans whose html and css coding contains errors. opera, instead, aims to strictly adhere to the official web standards put forth by the w3c (world wide web consortium). the reason firefox fails the original acid test is, firefox’s developers think that the w3c’s official rules for a few things, like the part that the original acid test is about, are stupid. i should also point out that there is an obvious conflict of interest involving opera, the w3c, and both acid tests: håkon wium lie, chief technology officer of opera software, is also one of the main authors of both acid tests, as well as the w3c specifications that those tests are designed around. in fact, he invented cascading style sheets, which is the main thing both of the tests are testing. so a top executive from opera actually helped make these rules and make these tests, in such a way as to ensure that his browser comes out on top. firefox, internet explorer, and all the other browsers, on the other hand, seem to have been completely shut out of this conspiracy. icab and konqueror are just copycats who followed safari’s lead, but the really interesting thing is how fast apple was able to make safari pass the acid2 test, even though i don’t think apple was involved in this w3c-opera conspiracy. anyway, i am back to using firefox, since i can’t stand using anything else.