Internet Explorer 8: IE8 Compatibility List

[David Baxter PhD]

Update on the Compatibility View List in Internet Explorer 8
IE Blog
July 22, 2009

Let’s start with a quick recap of the feature... by default Internet Explorer 8 displays web content using its newest, most standards compliant mode. The problem is that some of today’s web pages expect the older, less interoperable behavior from Internet Explorer , handing this latest version of Internet Explorer code meant for older releases of the browser. The result is web pages that might not function correctly in ways ranging from just looking a bit misaligned to not working at all.

During the Beta cycle, we introduced the Compatibility View button, which allowed savvy end-users to resolve compatibility problems they might encounter as described above. Despite all of our activities around site outreach, we saw telemetry data that indicated users still had to use Compatibility View in the course of normal browsing. Of particular concern was button use on popular / critical (banking, government, etc…) sites that users rightfully expected to “just work” in Internet Explorer 8. To give users the best possible experience, we combined telemetry data about Compatibility View button presses with other feedback sources (customer-filed bugs, Report a Webpage Problem data, our own compatibility testing, etc.) to create a list of sites that were likely best displayed in Compatibility View.

The list’s not enabled by default - users must opt-in to the feature (known simply as the Compatibility View List or Compatibility List, in other documents) as part of the first run experience or later by selecting ‘Include updated website lists from Microsoft’ at Tools -> Compatibility View Settings. For those that chose to do so, Internet Explorer 8 displays sites on the list in Compatibility View rather than the default “best standards mode”. In other words, it’s as if the user pressed the Compatibility View button for sites on the list with the benefit that the end user avoids having to first experience a website compatibility failure to make the determination that these particular sites are best viewed in a non-default manner. You can view the list currently available on your Internet Explorer installation by typing ‘res://iecompat.dll/iecompatdata.xml’ into the browser’s address bar.

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What's on the latest list is interesting. The list of non-compliant sites includes google.com, aol.com, americanexpress.com, and amazon.com, among many others.

So if your site appears on the list, at least you're in good... or at least big... company.