Nov 2, 2010 08:23 GMT  ·  By

It’s rather simple, Microsoft climbed back at the top of the browser game with Internet Explorer 9, the next major iteration of IE. Performance, interoperability, UX, web standards support, hardware acceleration, etc., all aspects of the browser have been fine tuned to put it ahead of its rivals. And even with competitors having a strong lead when compared to Internet Explorer 8, the Redmond company has successfully closed the gap with IE9, moving ahead in some areas, such as interoperability and modern web standards support.

Internet Explorer 9 has bested Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari in terms of HTML5 support according to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This after not that long ago, Google, Mozilla, Opera and Apple were all pointing fingers at Microsoft for its failure to embrace modern technologies.

It looks like the tables have turned. W3C posted the “Official HTML5 Test Suite Conformance Results” revealing that the latest development milestone of IE9 (Platform Preview 6) is the most HTML5 compliant browser version, taking into consideration features such as attributes, audio, canvas, getElementsByClassName, foreigncontent, video and xhtml5.

IE9 has a perfect score in no less than five categories, 100% for attributes, audio, foreigncontent, video and xhtml5, results unmatched by any other browser.

The only rival to come close to IE9 is Google Chrome 7.0.517.41 Beta, with a perfect score for compliance with four features, superior to Internet Explorer 9 only in terms of getElementsByClassName support.

Next in line is Firefox 4 Beta 6 with 100% scores for three features, followed by Opera 10.60, also reaching the perfect compliance score only for three HTML5 features.

Safari 5.0.7533.16 is the bottom-feeder of the “Official HTML5 Test Suite Conformance Results” sporting the lowest HTML5 compliance level of all browsers.

“Interoperability is the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged,” W3C reveals.

“Interoperability is important to web designers. Good test suites drive interoperability. They're a key part of making sure web standards are implemented correctly and consistently. More tests encourage more interoperability.”

Of course, the HTML5 specification is yet to be completed, and the HTML5 tests in the compliance overview although agreed upon by the HTML WG, do not cover the entire technology.

Still, ahead of anything else, these results reveal a healthy change for Internet Explorer, one that with the evolution to Internet Explorer 9 will end up benefiting developers, users and the entire web.

What do you think? Do Google, Mozilla, Opera, and Apple have anything to worry about IE9? Have you tried IE9 Beta? How about IE9 PP6?

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Beta is available for download here.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 6 (PP6) is available for download here.

Google Chrome for Windows is available for download here. Firefox 4 Beta 6 for Windows is available for download here.
Opera 11 Alpha for Windows is available for download here.

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