PC Tonic

We all keep talking about how the big browsers out there are constantly developing their Acid3* test scores with every upgrade, but little notice is taken of the lesser known browsers. Putting all that aside, Linux-only Epiphany is out to make an impression – the WebKit powered variant of the 2.24.1 version scored a near perfect 98 / 100 in the Acid3 test on my crappy old desktop! Firefox 3.0.4 managed a comparatively pathetic 70 on the same machine.

* For all those still in the dark, Acid3 is a test page from the Web Standards Project that checks how well a web browser follows certain web standards, especially relating to the Document Object Model and JavaScript.

Epiphany’s score also means it’s far ahead of the other stable browsers like Opera 9.62 (85) and Safari 3.2.1(75) as well. Good news is that latest unstable builds of Opera and Safari scored perfect 100 s in the Acid3 test, while Firefox 3.1b2 has frog-leaped to 92. The development builds of Google Chrome are also making steady improvements in the test. Still, these results do suggest that there are these small projects which are continuously working towards providing us some really good, if not the best products for use.