Acid3 Test Released. I Took Some Screen Captures. Lots of Fail.
by Rob Larsen
Screen Shots
These were done with browsercam, so the test may or may not have fully run its course by the time the 15 second delay was up. Still, it’s not like any of these browsers were close, so a few seconds isn’t going to save them if, in fact, they were cut off before the rendering was over.
As a note, I tried to do the Capture in Konqueror and it pretty much made Browsercam cry and/or vomit (“Do NOT Try The Capture Again!”) I’m going to log in shortly to see what the actual damage is.
[update]It’s a known bug and some commentors were gracious enough to take screen shots with updated versions.[/update]
Reference Rendering:
And now the Fail parade:
Camino 1.51 Mac OS 10.5
Firefox 2 Mac OS 10.5
Firefox 3 Mac OS 10.5
Internet Explorer 6 Windows XP
Internet Explorer 7 Windows Vista
Internet Explorer 7 Windows XP
Firefox 2 Windows XP
Firefox 3 Windows XP
Safari 3 Mac OS 10.5
[update]as seen in the comments the latest build is now scoring 87/100[/update]
[update]Sorry Opera! I had the capture, but forgot to post it in my rush to get out the door today[/update]
Opera 9.24 Windows Vista
Here’s Konqueror built from SVN 2008.03.06 (thanks to Ronald Hummelink and everyone else that sent in Konqueror captures)
And here’s IE8 Beta:
Opera 9.5:
Firefox 3 Beta 4 on Windows XP
[update! 3-27-2008] As everyone now knows, we’ve had a winner in the race to pass Acid3. Congrats to the WebKit team
[update 2008.9.02 I added Google Chrome Screen shot]

Now, the press release:
Follow @robreactAcid3: Putting Browser Makers on Notice, Again. – The Web Standards Project
Acid3: Putting Browser Makers on Notice, Again.
Released: 3 March 2008 | Author: The Web Standards Project
The Web Standards Project (WaSP) today 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 online 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.
WaSP has a history of such initiatives. In 1997, emeritus member Todd Fahrner, together with a group of crack Web developers dubbed the “CSS Samurai,” created an “Acid Test” that highlighted shortcomings in browser support for CSS. The Acid Test was instrumental in moving the industry much closer to the goal of consistent rendering of Web pages in different browsers. This was followed by Acid2 in 2005, designed to expose flaws in the implementation of mature Web standards such as HTML, CSS, and PNG. Acid3 builds on and extends this legacy to web applications in 2008.
Acid3 can be found online at http://www.webstandards.org/acid3/

BJ Clark Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Thanks for posting these. That is some massive fail.
rob Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
No problem. I’m glad to share this kind of thing.
As an update, Hixie mentioned that Safari 3 is now scoring 87/100 on its nightly builds.
codist Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
The latest webkit nightly gets 87/100. I tried it this morning.
rob Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Yeah, as I mentioned in #2 Hixie wrote about that when unleashing acid3 on the world. I need to source a screen shot and update the post…
anonymous Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Which FF3 beta did you use?
rob Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Browsercam reports it as 3.0b3 (you can see it in the full size screen shot)
Opera Fan Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Where’s opera?
rob Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
“Where’s opera?”
Runs off to edit the post…
Right there at the bottom
Sorry about missing it the first time around!
Web 2.0 Announcer Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Acid3 Test Released. I Took Some Screen Captures….
[...]I took some screen captures of the major browsers rendering the Acid3 test- Opera 9, Safari 3, Firefox 2,3, and Internet Explorer 6 and 7. With the exception of the latest nightly build of Safari 3, they all score below 59. Not a surprise, of cour…
legoman666 Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 10:22 am
I just ran it on FF3 beta 3 and got a 58/100.
?
David Gates Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 10:59 am
The latest Opera beta (9.50) gets 60/100 on my XP installation.
Chris Pine Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Maybe try Opera 9.5? It fares better.
rob Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I’m swamped today, but I’ll check out Opera 9.5 today if I get the chance. right now I’m working off of browsercam, but I’m more than happy to expand this beyond the walls of browsercam’s test suite if it’s possible for me to do so.
Wes Kroesbergen Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
The latest WebKit gets 90/100 here.
Kroz Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Where’s Konqueror?
rob Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
As I mentioned (right before the screen shots start), unpatched, Acid3 kills Konqueror.
It’s a known bug ( http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=155451 )
I don’t have access to a Linux machine running KDE ( outside of the one at Browsercam) at present, so I can’t do the test myself with a patched version. If anyone wants to contribute a screen shot of a patched version of Konqueror I’ll gladly post it.
chip Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
not mentioned yet, but Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 (released today) for Vista fails at 17/100.
screenshot:
http://www.convivea.com/acid3-ie8-vista.jpg
mayor Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Newest Opera 9.50 beta build 9755
http://student.agh.edu.pl/~mayor/acid3opera950.jpg
Jimmy Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 9:19 am
17/100 for IE8 Beta. That’s just pathetic.
Felipe Fidelix Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Opera 9.50 Gets a better score.
Please Screen it.
kebrus Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 9:31 am
“legoman666 Says:
I just ran it on FF3 beta 3 and got a 58/100.
?”
deactivate adblock and run it again, at least it worked for me
rob Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Opera 9.5 added. Thanks guys!
Khurt Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 9:48 am
WebKit on OS X 10.5
http://flickr.com/photos/khurt/2296462451/
Fizzycakes Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Wow, just more proof IE is the worst main stream web browser out there. I still don’t get why it’s still the most popular.
Henry 'Pi' James Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Does anyone else find it problematic that the official “reference rendering” is not an image, but itself a HTML page? What if a browser fails the reference rendering — but in the same way it fails the Acid3 test?
Theoretically a new web browser can be created in five minutes which passes the test: It renders any given web page to a blank white canvas. The Acid3 will “look exactly, pixel for pixel, like the reference rendering”, as the requirement reads.
LOL Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
one thing i can say – these tests are bullsh*t
Evan Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Gee, a very early beta (IE8) gets a low score… what a mark against it.
Fizzycakes:
It’s most popular because it’s the default browser for windows.
Ben Dover Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
What, no Netscape?
skrzat Says:
March 8th, 2008 at 4:12 am
Firefox 3b5pre build 2008030607 has 68/100
Stephan Says:
March 8th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030510 Firefox/3.0b4
gets 67/100
Look ‘a here: http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/4306/screenshotie4.png
Stephan Says:
March 8th, 2008 at 6:34 am
acutally, Nightly Tester Tools screwed with the output.
it looks more like this:
http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/2017/screenshottheacid3testmxy2.png
John Lockwood Says:
March 11th, 2008 at 8:11 am
For what its worth I got a score of 39/100 running Safari on an iPhone with 1.1.4 firmware. While very impressive, this is not terribly surprising since it is after all running pretty much the same Mac OS X and Safari (and webkit) code as on a Mac.
Safari 3.0 under Mac OS X 10.4.11 also gets the same 39/100 score (as previously reported for Mac OS X 10.5).
I also tried a Nokia N95 mobile phone but it completely failed to run the test. This was a surprise since it is supposed to use webkit (like Safari), it failed due to a lack of Javascript support.
A Palm TX running the Blazer browser seemed to get a bit further than the Nokia but also failed to score anything.
Finally, just for laughs I tried Internet Explorer 5.2.3 under Mac OS X 10.4.11 (the last ever version of IE for the Mac) and it also failed to run the test and scored nothing.
I would guess Safari 3 beta for Windows would be scoring the same as the Mac version, anyone tried it?
rob Says:
March 11th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I just tested it. Safari 3 Beta for Windows scores the same.
John Lockwood Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Thanks for the response rob regarding Safari on Windows.
It just goes to show that Apple deliver equally good software for all the platforms they develop for, while Microsoft insist on pushing deliberately inferior versions on anything other than Windows (e.g. MS Messenger, Office, RDC Client, etc. etc. etc. for Mac).
Greg Haines Says:
March 18th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
The just released Safari 3.1 scores a solid 74/100 (and says ‘LINKTEST FAILED’). I believe Safari now has the highest score of the Big 3!
Adie Says:
March 18th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I get 77/100 on Opera 9.50 9841
J Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 11:14 am
WebKit build from 25.03.2008 gets…
95/100
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/7018/picture1zk8.png
rob Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Wow. They’re closing in rapidly.
Scotepi Says:
March 27th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
i get 99/100 on Safari 5525.13
rob Says:
March 27th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Yeah, actually I do too. I’ll have to check the version I tested on at work. They have been adjusting the test over the past few days so maybe we’re seeing a byproduct of that.
stelt Says:
March 31st, 2008 at 4:25 am
acid3 is a step up towards better SVG testing.
John Davis Says:
July 11th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Webkit has been hitting 100/100 consistently for the last few weeks:
http://nightly.webkit.org/start/trunk/35113
John Davis
Степаныч Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Хм… Пока это у нас не очень сильно развито, так что придётся подождать.
flash tekkie Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 6:49 am
WebKit passed Acid3 fully for the first time on Friday. So it’s 100 subtests of 100 passed now. Opera 9.60 Beta scored 85.
rob Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Thanks, I forgot to update this post with that news. Very cool.
juan jesus Says:
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 am
kmeleon ccfme 0.09beta3 gets 87/100
en español: kmeleon ccfme 0.09beta3 obtiene 87/100
una pregunta cual es mas nuevo esta versión o la que dice 0.86 xul
I have no problem taking from the rich « ModestoBuzz Says:
March 17th, 2009 at 1:05 am
[...] compliant browsers like Internet Explorer. I hear that IE8 didn’t even pass the acid 3 test. http://www.drunkenfist.com/304/2008/03/04/acid3-test-released-i-took-some-screen-captures-lots-of-fa… Posted 7 seconds ago [...]
随机记事 » Acid3测试发布 Says:
April 4th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
[...] Web标准组织宣布Acid3测试发布,最新测试页的 设计目的是暴露浏览器在执行成熟web标准上的缺陷,测试Web 2.0富应用所需的规格。目前最成功的浏览器当属Safari 3(最初它只得到31分,但最新版达到了87/100)。IE没几项通过,IE6 11分,IE7 12分。Firefox 2.0.0.12得分为50,Firefox 3:59分。Opera 9.24 :56分。 [...]
TheLarrikin Says:
May 20th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Opera 10 Preview gets 100/100 on Acid3 test.
Best Of March 2008 « Smashing Magazine Says:
October 8th, 2009 at 7:08 am
[...] Acid3 Test Released The Acid3 test has been released and most current browsers fail it miserably. Exception: Safari has done its homework perfectly. [ via Thinkvitamin ] [...]
Geek is a Lift-Style. »Archive » Best Of March 2008 Says:
June 16th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
[...] Acid3 Test Released The Acid3 test has been released and most current browsers fail it miserably. Exception: Safari has done its homework perfectly. [ via Thinkvitamin ] [...]