Web Browser Standards, 2005

There's been a lot of talk on the DigitalDivide email list (specifically, here). The thread got a bit messy, but there were some good points made.

Problems With Standards

The truth of the matter is that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has done and continues to create great standards for the web.

The problem is that browser manufacturers - most notably Microsoft - aren't creating browsers that aren't completely compatible with these standards. To compound matters, since Microsoft's Internet Explorer remains the dominant web browser at the time of this writing. In fact, you can read about Microsoft Internet Explorer's history of web standards here. To cut to the chase, you can read about the Internet Explorer box model bug, the Internet Explorer's poor support of PNG (Portable Network Graphics), Internet Explorer's Problems with HTTP, HTML and MIME, and the consequences of poor support of W3C standards by Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Yet Microsoft Internet Explorer remains the most used browser - mainly because it has proliferated with Microsoft's Windows Operating System, and the fact that now Microsoft says (and has engineered) Internet Explorer is an inherent part of Windows.

But what about the rest of the browsers? Well, we can take a look at the Web Technology Support Comparison. The larger Comparison of Web Browsers is also quite revealing.

The real problem with web standards should be apparent: Enforcing the web standards. But who is responsible for enforcing web standards? And what happens to older hardware that cannot run the latest browsers?

The Dilemma of Older Machines

Older machines have problems only because the browsers that they are running aren't compliant to present web standards. One solution that was proposed was simply 'turning off style sheets', but a quick look at Mozilla's hardware requirements shows that the latest version of Mozilla runs on just about every operating system with a reasonable degree of compliance. You can find other web browsers to research here - I use Mozilla on two different operating systems, so I wrote about Mozilla.

It should be apparent, however, that new web browsers are available for older machines at this time - and these web browsers do a decent job at standards, though they aren't perfect. That they are Open Source and are supported better than the corporate browsers does say something.

The Job of Enforcing Web Standards

The W3C, as good as it is, doesn't have any authority but that which the community gives it. If the community doesn't demand that websites and web browser manufacturers comply to Open Standards, then the W3C cannot do anything.

In the end, it's really up to the community to enforce web standards. Whether the community decides to that or not defines the future of web standards in the future - and even right now.