Microsoft has bowed to widespread pressure by web development groups and announced that Internet Explorer 8 will default to its most standards compliant behaviour unless the web page explicitly requires an Internet Explorer 7 compatibility mode or pre-dates standards so much that a “Quirks” mode is used.
This is a change from what Microsoft previously announced in which IE7 compatibility would be applied unless the most standards compliant IE8 behaviour was explicitly requested.
One question is will Microsoft include a force IE7 mode command? Some IE7 compatible sites are no longer maintained and could end up looking poorly under the new default more standards compliant IE8 mode.
It’s expected that Microsoft will unveil IE8 at the MIX08 conference in Las Vegas, March 5-7.