ENGL112: English Composition II 1 ENGL112: English Composition II Internet Browser Standards and Compatibility Trina VanderLouw Professor Kelly Mink Colorado Technical University Online November 8, 2010 Highlights: Effective Note Taking, Paraphrasing, Plagiarism, Research Plans, References, Final Research Paper Internet Browser Standards and Compatibility Programs Used: Microsoft Word, CTU Virtual Campus Instructor Feedback: Trina, Most interesting work on your topic, important in the internet age. Formally speaking, you've turned in a well-written final paper -- with a good set of arguments concerning your really quite important topic. Your 'APA style' is quite good, too. Excellent work, again, though -- and a very interesting paper as a whole; congratulations on getting through the course so well! Kelly Final Grade: A
ENGL112: English Composition II 2 Internet Browser Standards and Compatibility Have you ever wondered why websites look and act so differently on various web browsers? Maybe you have opened a new page before and thought the objects were out of place, or design elements were strange. Chances are you were experiencing a breakdown in standard HTML coding compliance. Most web designers will view their work in a browser to be sure it looks right, but what some fail to do is check for cross-browser functionality. Each internet browser is uniquely programmed and therefore, each organization is left to decide if they will follow standards or not. For web designers and developers this can be one of the most frustrating and time consuming controversies of the job. Every web page is made up of HTML or similar coding. When a user clicks on to a new page, that user s web browser interprets the codes and displays the outcome on the monitor or screen. Depending on which browser is being used, the results may or may not display as intended. In order for users to have a positive experience regardless of browser platform, web designers must code for compatibility in each browser. If any of them do not have web standards or compliance incorporated into their programming, it results in a lot of extra hours of coding and testing for designers. In addition, the extra codes clutter the HTML and internet highway causing slower and less efficient web browsing. Internet Explorer (IE) is the worst offender of breaking the standards, but yet it is the most widely used browser with over 55% of the market share between releases 6, 7 and 8 (Net, 2010). With so many people accessing the web via IE, designers cannot ignore the extra steps and programming that it takes to help it read and display the page correctly. Most other browsers, (e.g. Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari), pass the standard tests with
ENGL112: English Composition II 3 flying colors, requiring only one set of codes which can be correctly read and displayed among each browser. It seems the solution to this problem would be easy; Internet Explorer needs to conform to standards too. Naturally then the question follows, why does Microsoft not comply with standard web browser codes and security? Web standards have existed for over a decade and are determined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The World Wide Web was invented in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, who in 1990 wrote the first HTML coding, and in 1994 started the W3C. He continues to lead the consortium today in conjunction with CEO Dr. Jeff Jaffe (W3C, 2010). The work of the W3C focuses primarily on standardizing web development, and its mission is to lead the web to its fullest potential (W3C, 2010). It is an international, non-profit organization which consists of leaders from various organizations, developers and public members worldwide. The consortium consists of several group panels that specialize in one area of development of the web. Those groups include web developers, content designers, and programmers who are passionate thinkers (W3C, 2010). With such a great culture of high technical skills, diversity and openness, they are able to present the most current consensus about web standards. Web standards create a solid foundation, especially coming from such a respected source of professionalism and open opinion. They create high quality user experiences and streamlined coding and efficiency for web developers. However, there is a large conflict that arises because Microsoft chooses not to comply with the standards set by the W3C. As was mentioned earlier, IE is the most widely used browser. This is presumably because of its automatically being included on all new computers with Windows. It has been the browser by default for many users
ENGL112: English Composition II 4 who may not even realize they have options in web browsers. Interestingly enough however, just this year other browsers have been gaining in popularity and the use of Internet Explorer has seen a decline (Net, 2010). From the beginning Microsoft has ignored the rules and standards of the W3C. In 2008 Microsoft released IE 8 which has been reprogrammed to conform to more of the standards than previous releases. It is still a far cry from being standards compliant, but is a step in the right direction. The latest news from Microsoft is the release of IE9, which is said to be even more compliant (Microsoft, 2010). The possibility that Microsoft is keenly aware of its declining market value could be what is driving the effort to improve. Why then do they not just comply with all of the standards? Microsoft claims that standards are important, but they have to implement them correctly because they must do so without breaking the existing web (Hachamovitch, 2007). There is a lot of controversy surrounding that statement. Some developers believe it should be a break that would happen one time and be fixed for good, while others believe the breakdown of millions of poorly designed sites would be unacceptable (IEBlog, 2008). The next browser in popularity is Mozilla Firefox (Net, 2010). Firefox is standards compliant and functions very well for web developers, many of whom have had input in the programming process. Mozilla Firefox is open source software that has been created by an international movement of thousands, only a small percentage of whom are actual employees (Mozilla, 2010). Mozilla is a non-profit organization that does not have stock options. This is an indication that they are not concerned with profit and pricing, but public benefits (Mozilla, 2010), unlike their counterparts at Microsoft.
ENGL112: English Composition II 5 There is a lot of information available on web browsers and standards, both educational and entertaining. While reading blogs and opinions of different developers it is clear that while many agree that IE should do a better job with standards compliance (DeJean, 2008), there are also many who believe they are doing what is best (Hachamovitch, 2007). Many bring up opposing points of view or problems that have been glossed over by Microsoft about the corporation s responsibility for browser compliance. One particular blog is interesting because it clarifies more about the history of Internet Explorer and why this particular developer believes it went so bad. In 2001 the market share for IE was at 95% and the blogger believes that Microsoft just stopped trying and did nothing for five years (Howtogeek, 2010). This blog is my favorite because it is humorous, but also has a lot of truth to it. He examines both of the sides, good and bad, of Internet Explorer. He gives credit to Microsoft for some of the great, innovative things they did with web development early on. But when speaking about what it is like for designers today he says: Here s a sample of a day in the life of a web designer: You spend hours making sure that your page looks great, and you test it out in Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and even Opera. It looks great, awesome! Now you open up IE and the page looks like somebody put it into a blender and hit the Whip button. Then you spend double the amount of time trying to fix it to look tolerable in IE6 and IE7, cursing loudly the entire time. (Howtogeek, 2010) From my experience in web development, I believe the solution is in changing IE to be completely compliant. Most sites are not created and based solely on IE codes. For this to be the
ENGL112: English Composition II 6 case the sites would not work well or right in other browsers. Most sites are coded to support all cross-browser functionality. This solution would be helpful not only for designers, but also users who are unknowingly exposed to many serious security risks because of the lack of correct codes in Internet Explorer (Naraine, 2010). IE is the most infected browser by viruses, malware and other security risks because it is a huge target for hackers. They can reach the largest amounts of users and the codes are easily manipulated. Most people would be happy with the outcome of having all browsers compatible to the same codes. This solution would allow for all programmers to write in clean, uncluttered codes which would greatly improve functionality. Users would also benefit by having the same experience on a website regardless of browser platform, and every site would display exactly how it was intended to. Websites would load faster and browsers would perform better. Internet Explorer is the slowest browser and also uses the most memory space, but could be improved with better programming (Wagner, 2008). The W3C is constantly reviewing new codes that have been created by innovative programmers, and releases come out often of updated web browsers. With these in place the web can continue its progression with web standards. It is possible that Internet Explorer will be phased out due to browser wars in the near future if it does not do something to dramatically increase its ability to compete with tough competition. The growth of Google Chrome has been astounding over the last quarter, and Firefox continues to climb in numbers as well (Net, 2010). These changes are a good start towards leading the web to its fullest potential.
ENGL112: English Composition II 7 References DeJean, D. (2008, March 7). Why web standards in IE 8? It s done so well without them. Computerworld Blogs. Retrieved from http://blogs.computerworld.com/ web_standards_in_ie_8 Hachamovitch, D. (2007, December 19). Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2: A milestone. MSDN Blogs. Retrieved from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2007/12/19/internetexplorer-8-and-acid2-a-milestone.aspx Howtogeek. (2010, October 20). Why do so many geeks hate Internet Explorer? The Best Article Every Day. Retrieved from http://www.bspcn.com/2010/10/20/why-do-so-manygeeks-hate-internet-explorer/ IEBlog. (2008, February 21). The Internet Explorer 8 user-agent string. Retrieved from Microsoft Corporation. (2010). What s new in Internet Explorer 9? Retrieved from http://blogs.msdn.com/msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2008/02/21/the-internet-explorer-8- useragent-string.asp#7855640 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/help/ie-9/whats-new-ininternet-explorer-9/ Mozilla. (2010). Firefox features. Retrieved from http://mozilla.com/en-us/firefox/features/
ENGL112: English Composition II 8 Naraine, R. (2010, October 12). Patch Tuesday: Critical flaws haunt Microsoft Office, IE browser. ZDNet. Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/patch-tuesdaycritical-flaws-haunt-microsoft-office-ie-browser/7447?tag=content;search-results- rivers Net Market Share. (2010, October 23). Browser version market share. Retrieved from http:// www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qptimeframe=m W3C. (2010). Browsers. World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved from http://www.w3.org/ standards/agents/browsers/ Wagner, R. (2008, March 26). Browser Performance Comparisons. CyberNotes. Retrieved from http://cybernetnews.com/cybernotes-browser-performance-comparisons/