Microsoft has decided that the new version of Internet Explorer (IE) which is number 8 in the series, will comply with all the W3C web standards by default going forward.

In IE 7, Microsoft used 2 modes for displaying web pages. “querks mode” for showing old pages that are badly formatted, and "standards" mode, for showing pages that appear to conform to the W3C standards.

The problem with this is that IE 7 doesn't follow the standards very well, and so its "standards" mode isn’t reliable. This basically means that when a developer produces a website that is W3C compliant. Further tweaks are then needed for IE 7 and earlier to get the website to look right.

It was earlier announced that web pages in IE 8 would have to opt in to use the W3C compliance mode, but this meant more tweaks to web pages would be needed in order for them to validate with W3C. Thankfully, Microsoft has changed their mind and will enable this mode by default.

This move by Microsoft has no doubt been taken in an attempt to try and fend off Opera’s antitrust complaint, which argues that the EU should force IE into better standards compliance.

For everyone else this is a surprising yet exciting venture by Microsoft. This now means that web pages written to the W3C specification should look almost identical in browsers such as Opera, Firefox, Netscape the new IE 8.

IE 8 Beta is released today, with the full release expected at the end of 2008.