Internet Explorer 8 Standards Mode Is Opt-in

The IE Platform Architect reports on the IEBlog that for a site to render in standards-compliant mode in IE8 it will need to include a specific meta tag:

1. “Quirks mode” remains the same, and [will stay] compatible with current content.
2. “Standards mode” remains the same as IE7, and [will stay] compatible with current content.

For a page developer to use the best standards support IE8 can give, you can get it by inserting a simple meta element. The meta tag, also documented by A List Apart looks like this:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />

While in order to retain backwards compatibility with the sites of yesterday (and of five years ago), opting in to render a page in standards-mode in IE8 seems the only sensible option. Hardcoding a reference to a specific browser seems wrong but may be necessary until full standard compliance is met by most sites.