IE8 Fully Compatible with 90% of Websites Worldwide

More and more websites are fully compatible with Internet Explorer 8, and the list of those that play nice with the latest version of IE grows on a daily basis. After all, as of the start of the year, IE8 has been the browser most used worldwide, according to statistics from Net Application, which credits this specific browser release with a market share of 22.52%.

In fact, throughout 2009 and at the start of 2010, IE8’s first year on the market, developers have aligned their websites with the browser. Marc Silbey, IE program manager, recently revealed that Microsoft had cut down the list of websites featured in the Compatibility View List to 2,000 from 3,100. This was done in conjunction with the general trend for companies and developers to increasingly tailor their websites to IE8. One year after the launch of IE8, Microsoft underlines that the vast majority of online properties have been adapted to the browser.

“Nearly 90% of the top websites from around the world are compatible with Internet Explorer 8 without using the Compatibility View list, which puts us on par with other shipping versions of popular browsers,” Ryan Gavin, senior director for Internet Explorer, stresses in an email to Softpedia.

IE8’s Compatibility View is a mechanism set in place by the Redmond company in order to ensure that websites that do not yet support the IE8 Standards Mode will still render correctly and provide the best user experience possible for users, even though the sites in question might have been created for IE6 or IE7. “The addition of the Compatibility View list means more sites can be viewed as the site creator intended in Internet Explorer 8 than any other shipping browser,” Gavin adds.

It is critical to note that, while Microsoft makes efforts to embrace modern web standards such as HTML5 and CSS3, web developers also have a responsibility to adapt their sites accordingly. Internet compatibility is, after all, based on a balance between web standards support from browser makers and web content alignment from developers, with the focus always on the end user.

“Compatibility and interoperability are complex. To reduce complexity for developers and users alike, we would love to see websites transition from legacy browser modes. We respect that the choice of mode is up to the site developer. We’re excited to work with sites and standards bodies to continue improving IE’s implementation of interoperable standards,” Silbey said earlier this month.

The work Microsoft has done with IE8, and the company’s preview of IE9 are clear indications that the company is committed to allowing web developers to write code once and have it work seamlessly across all browsers.

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RTW is available for download here (for 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008).