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Comment by devx | Hacker News Reader

This seems to solve it:

IE11 -> Tools -> Compatibility View Settings. Remove check on "Use Microsoft Compatibility lists".

I'm trying to figure out what the problem is, and I can't see how the compatibility list would force Google into such a legacy mode:

  <domain docMode="EmulateIE10" versionVector="10" uaString="10" featureSwitch="overrideXUACompatible:false">google.com</domain>

It seems to read as: render and present as IE10, and if there is a `<meta` tag specifying x-ua-compatibility, don't ignore it.

There's another section that overrides the backwards/forwards cache setting for google.com:

    <BFCache>
        ...
        <domain exclude="true">google.com</domain>

But I've no clue how that would affect rendering so much.

I've disabled both settings (commented out) and will report back if commenting them out fixes Google.

If I were to guess:

Google is detecting the user agent string and attempting to use features that should be supported. e.g. google's code is trying to use some IE11 feature that IE10 didn't support. The compat settings are making this fail which seems to cause google's code to drop to it's lowest compatibility mode (IE 6?) as some sort of 'compatibility panic'.

I think the problem is that EmulateIE10 is slightly broken: it sends "MSIE 10" but also "Trident/7.0". Real IE10 has Trident 6.0. This looks like it's screwing up the UA regexes.

but what is this setting ? it doesn't look like an UA switcher.

Compatibility view essentially switches the entire rendering stack & user agent. It even looks like the older version when inspecting many JS functions and such.

I'd expect google.com to be fully standards compliant, but for some reason I believe IE was forcing itself back to IE8 mode for it. Never understood why. Even in IE8 mode though, this should have worked fine- so could be something worse (identify as IE8, execute as IE11?).

For a site like Google, I see no reason why Microsoft should have put it into compatibility mode- I have to assume that Google does testing on IE and any bugs should have been addressed quickly by Google.

Furthermore, by using compat mode, the only way for google.com to use newer features in IE is to ask Microsoft to take it off the compat list then push an update to all IE browsers.

In general, this compat list should die and sites should be targeting standards-compliant behavior. If they identify as standards compliant and are not, bugs should happen.

"For a site like Google, I see no reason why Microsoft should have put it into compatibility mode- I have to assume that Google does testing on IE and any bugs should have been addressed quickly by Google."

Unfortunately, we see otherwise during our compat testing here at Microsoft on many occasions.

I guess you have no way to work with a major company like Google since you are such a small organization lacking resources.

You're making an assumption that Microsoft are the blocker. Let's just say that it's a two-way street when it comes to communication.

Sorry, I try to err on the side of caution as well but there is no way to do that in this case. Microsoft is clearly at fault. Adding someone to a "compatibility list" is a unilateral action Microsoft took.

If it works fine without being on compatibility mode, don't add it to your compatibility mode list.

If it had worked fine, it would never have been added in the first place. We don't add sites arbitrarily to the list. It's based on actual compat testing. Also every site on the list can request to be removed so if Google had tested in IE11 and discovered all was great, it's very easy for them to contact us to remove them from the list.

What about the quote from the article:

> I'll tell you more guys. I've updated to windows 8.1 on my tablet a month ago through MSND subscription and Google search worked just fine. Looks like this problem appeared after public availability of Windows 8.1. So I believe it's something that Google or Microsoft should figure out.

How could they have tested as they were not on the list until, what appears to be, the public release?

Google's been on the list well before the public GA release of IE11 to ensure compatibility.

Does this mean microsoft never contacted anyone about compatibility list?

To score some cheap points against a competitor you made your own product inferior. Good Luck with that attitude.

Again you're full of assumptions.

We're very proactive in our compat outreach and we've had numerous conversations with sites like Google. Sites like Google are VERY aware of the CV list & the modes they're rendering in; it's not a surprise to them.

Don't assume we're doing something nefarious when it's not the case. We have nothing to gain (and a lot to lose) by breaking one of the top web properties, even if they're a competitor.

Here's a more plausible scenario. Google may have made a change to their SERPs which didn't work great in the docmode that IE11 is rendering it in. Nothing intentional, nothing nefarious on either company's part.

I think that's a more reasonable explanation than the concerns you're expressing.

You are not being consistent:

[1] If it had worked fine, it would never have been added in the first place. [2] Sites like Google are VERY aware of the CV list & the modes they're rendering in; it's not a surprise to them.

Those 2 together are suggesting Google knows problem all along and you have been working with them but they didn't fix the issue.

All I'm saying is that we go to great lengths to get companies OFF the CV list. If they're on it, it's for a reason. We can't update their code for them.

May I ask you to get rid of this CV list altogether? We don't live in the walled garden Aol envisioned. Don't you agree that everyone hitting the same browser should see the same UA string.

    Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko

If not, can you please elaborate on this:

> If you currently use the x-ua-compatible header to target a legacy document mode, it's possible your site won't reflect the best experience available with IE11. For more info, see modern.ie. ?

If a site is on the list and they declare "edge", will they see the real ua string? What can someone on the list do to get the real ua string?

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