Is there a way to make IE8 honour opacity on an `:before` pseudo element?

Question

I have this simple CSS...

div:before {
    content: \"G\'day\";   
    filter: alpha(opacity=40);
    -moz-opacity: .4;
    opacity: .4;
}

Answer 1

I don't think it's possible.

I had the same problem a while back, and I ended up just working around it (by not using :before).

Here's some sound reasoning as to why it's not possible: Why does a filter gradient on a pseudo element not work in IE8?