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The Browser Wars

(August 2002)

Standards

There's another problem, too. Despite what some web authoring guides would have you belive, there are more than two different web browsers out there. Some people want to use something other than a Windows PC to surf the web. Some people don't even want to use a desktop computer - they want to use their palmtop, or their cellphone. Some people even want to make refrigerators that can surf the web. Of course, there are also people that can't use a conventional browser, because they're blind, so they use browsers that literally read the page out loud, or present it in braille.

There are LOTS of different web browsers in use in the world. More arrive every month. If they all had as many peculiarities as the version 4 browsers, there is no WAY that web authors could keep up. Many people currently get around this by (for example) only supporting the top 2 or 3 browsers. Again, there's a problem to this approach - the current "population" of the internet is a few hundred million. If you only support browsers with more than (say) 5% market share, you are ignoring tens of millions of people. So much for "accessible to everyone".

The number of web browsers out there far exceeds the capabilities of web authors to tailor their work to every one - and that number is still growing. There has to be another way.

This kind of issue has come up time and again in other industries, usually with the same outcome - standards. Agreed specifications that everyone works to, so that, for example, Smith Industries' 10mm nut will fit Jones Corporation's 10mm bolt.

Lots of web people recognised this need in the early to mid 1990's, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was formed, including representatives of all major software manufacturers in the field.

The idea is simple. The W3C defines standards, such as HTML or CSS, and then all the browser makers attempt to render standards-compliant documents the way the standards say they should. This will allow web authors to write a page once, and it should then just work, on all browsers.