Standards and compatibility

Microsoft’s decision to make the standards mode the default in IE8 caused a lot of controversy and it might make you cautious about deploying the new browser in case key sites don’t work (either internal intranets or sites users need to visit). By default, all internet sites will load in compatibility mode, although you can change that through group policy if you want to take advantage of the standards.

Unless a web site labels itself as standard compliant there will be a ‘broken page’ Compatibility button next to the address bar that reloads the page as it would look in IE7 and you can create a list of sites to load in compatibility mode automatically, by hand or through group policy. And perhaps most usefully, the Developer Tools option on the Tools menu gives you a comprehensive view of what scripts and styles are in use on the page and what they do; you can even edit the style and see what effect that has.