A History of Web Standards

Hold on to your mouse because you are about to be deployed into a good ol’ fashioned browser war.

It’s safe to say that by 1994, America had discovered the World Wide Web. We were amazed at the lightning-fast speed of our 28.8K modems and we almost enjoyed hearing the bangs and whistles blasted by our speakers when connecting to this fascinating new world.

Most of us began our Web journey by subscribing to online service providers, such as Prodigy and Compuserve, but eventually settled with a service that USA Today declared the fourth largest influence on “How the Internet Took Over:” America Online (AOL).

Besides the friendly greeting of “Welcome! You’ve got mail,” AOL connected us to most every website we could ever want, sparked our interest in instant messaging, and brainwashed us into believing that e-mail was an essential part of everyday life. With it’s inexpensive service and all-in-one package, AOL seemed to be the perfect way to view the Web.

But as we’ve now come to realize, what’s popular on the Web one day, isn’t so popular the next.

Flash forward two years. A Web navigation tool called the “browser” entered our lives and we began to access the Web in a less software-like fashion.

The first widely adopted browser was Netscape Navigator. Most of us welcomed the teal information-guide with open-source arms onto our desktops and into our lives. Netscape allowed us to view the Web without having to log-in through an online service provider. But a software-behemoth named Microsoft became extremely uneasy about Netscape’s attempt to make friends with the American public and literally saw an open “Window” into conquering the browser market. This began the first browser war.

The war spawned when Microsoft licensed Netscape Navigator and released its own version of the browser called Internet Explorer 1.0. Three months later, Microsoft unleashed an updated version of IE 1, logically titled Internet Explorer 2.0, which unlike Netscape, was available to all Windows users for free.

Over the next few years, it was pure bedlam between Microsoft and Netscape. Both companies regularly updated their browser, resulting in an unstable products, which were designed with little to no standards. Web designers often took sides and displayed messages along the lines of, “Webpage Best Viewed in Netscape.”

The war took an abrupt turn when Microsoft decided to take advantage of its status as the most widely used software company in the world. It bundled Internet Explorer in with the Windows Operating System. Although Microsoft secured victory, this abusive act of dominance was, and still is, hard to swallow for most techies.

Because of this pandemonium, along with future theories that the Web will connect to many devices, the technology community has come to appreciate the need for Web standards. Complying to Web standards promotes visibility, advocates accessibility, and secures the stability of a webpage.

I believe complying to Web standards is a necessity. While programmers often (and usually do) become frustrated adapting their interactive website to fit the needs of Internet Explorer 6 users, the fundamental intention of the World Wide Web is to broadcast information to everyone; a utopia of browsing. And though it may not look as sexy as it does in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome, information should be clearly visible and easily accessible to anyone surfing the Web.