Internet Explorer 8 provides best web browsing experience

Well, that's what this commercial seems to tell us:

Their claims? That my slow browser is probably "several generations old." They tell me that IE8 is "a huge improvement on the speed scale."

These statements are true if I ordinarily run Mosaic. Of course, IE8 is one more generation of the same old software, and to say that IE8 is faster than IE7 is kinda like saying that Windows 7 will be faster than Vista. They'd have to try hard to make it the other way around.

Of course, they completely fail to mention that IE8 fails almost as hard as IE7 when it comes to meeting web standards. Finally, Microsoft managed to turn this:

...into this:

Congratulations, Microsoft. You finally passed the Acid2 test. But every other browser's been breezing through for quite some time now. Find something else to impress me with.

And how about Acid3? Here's the debacle we know as IE7's rendering:

And here's the major improvement shown by IE8:

Wow! Now it says, "FAIL" in giant letters just to let you know that it does, in fact, fail. It probably says that in the IE7 rendering as well, but it's difficult to tell what with all the mangled distortion of crap way up there.

This test takes about two to three seconds to run in Firefox and Chrome (with Chrome running about half a second faster). In Internet Explorer, it's about nine seconds. How's that for fast!

One generation older and seven seconds slower.

On an unrelated note, after Microsoft's failed ad campaign starring Jerry Seinfeld, you'd think that other has-been performers from the 90's would realize that perhaps Microsoft commercials are not the best way to make a career comeback.