Latest WebKit passes 100/100 Acid3

FROM Surfin’ Safari:

With r31342 WebKit has become the first publicly available rendering engine to achieve 100/100 on Acid3. The final test, test 79, was a brutal torture test of SVG text rendering. Details of the bugs we fixed will follow. Indeed, we found a critical bug in the test itself that would have forced a violation of the SVG 1.1 standard to pass, so until a few hours ago it was not possible to get a valid 100/100. Acid3 test editor Ian Hickson has the details.

It is surprisingly very easy to get the latest WebKit build running on your computer. All you have to do is to download and install the latest nightly build. A new icon will be made available, as well as the debug tool Drosera.

Once WebKit is installed, it can be launched just like Safari. Its icon even looks similar to Safari’s, except that the compass has a golden lining instead of the silver one that ornates Safari’s. There is a noticeable improvement in speed, especially with pages that have a lot of JavaScript — this is obvious with pages that contain “widgets” such as Google Ads. But, the selling point of using WebKit is that you will be running the best [1] web rendering engine under the hood — WebKit runs within Safari, to make it simpler.

I haven’t tried the Windows build of WebKit, but a nightly build for that OS is also available. So, it may turn out to be just as easy to install. Give it a try and let me know.

[1] This seems to be a given, as there are no flames coming from the Firefox camp. Incidentally, Firefox 2 does not even pass the Acid2 test, and it looks like Firefox 3 will not pass Acid3 due to the rather outdated underlying Gecko engine.

Eddy.

My first car accident

YESTERDAY, I was involved in a car accident for the first time when I collided with another 4×4. Unfortunately, mine was the only vehicle to sustain damages; the rear of the other 4×4 was built like the front of a tank and was barely scratched.

At the police station, nobody bothered to check that we were legal drivers. The tax vignette and road-worthiness of the vehicles were not verified either. It fell to us drivers to file the paperwork for the insurers to arrange for compensation.

I took the car for inspection this morning, and it appears that not much is broken after all. Now, on to sort out things with Mauritius Union, which may not be as straightforward judging from Avinash’s experience.