In this issue

Internet Explorer won the browser wars - right?

Its easy to find out what browsers your visitors are using from the log files that your web server creates.  They typically (on a business site) show about 90% Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), 3% Netscape Navigator and the rest are various odd and sods like WebTV, search engine spiders, and so on.  So its pretty obvious that IE is dominant.    

But there is a new competitor and in a wierd way it is a re-run of a much earlier battle.

Some history

The web browser as we know it  was invented at an American university (Illinois) in the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA).  The team there created a software program called Mosaic. It is hard now to realise what a revolutionary piece of software this was.  In a very real way, this small team created the World Wide Web as we know it.

The team included a young guy called Marc Andreessen who went off to form Netscape and rewrite the browser.  The code name for the new browser was Mozilla (Mosaic Killer).  Mozilla was also, by the way, the name for a green lizard-like monster which was the mascot of the project.  Netscape pretty soon had a dominant market share. Even when you had to buy it, Netscape completely dominated the scene. 

But then Mosaic made a comeback courtest of Microsoft.  If you are running IE - click on Help/About.  Yep its based on Mosaic. 

We are set for a re-run of 'new browser vs Mosaic'.  The new browser is also called Mozilla and its a great product.  But we don't think the result will be the same, for a number of reasons including the developer's attitude to standards.

Enter the W3C and standards

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was created in 1994 to set standards and all current browsers aim to adhere to them.  Stick to the standard and your page should work on any browser.  However like all technology developers Microsoft is looking for competitive edge, so IE implemented some additional features that are not part of the standard.  Now picture this scene.

[Client] I would like a gizmo that I have just seen on a competitors site, I think it will make me some money.
[You] We can't do that because it would need an IE-specific feature which does not adhere to the W3C standard.
[[Client] Fine, I am happy to sacrifice the additional revenue I might make as long as we comply with the standard.

Somehow it doesn't gel.  However there is a whole community out there of technicians that thinks that this is an entirely reasonable conversation.  And the focus of their efforts is Mozilla.   

Mozilla

When Netscape decided to open its code up to the world and let a group of volunteers develop it as an 'open source' project, naturally the name of the project was Mozilla.  The Mozilla software includes things like e-mail as well as the browser, and the stripped-down browser-only program was called Gecko. So to explain the relationship:

• Mozilla is the open source project that develops the software
• Gecko is the core browser module
• Netscape uses the software developed by the Mozilla project as a basis for its Navigator software.

Mozilla is now a very good browser. It is a complete re-write, is very stable, has a bunch of neat features.  Overall is a great job. 

The browser developers saw adherance to W3C standards as their  mission and are horrified by the thought that they should implement some of those IE specific features that are not in the standard.  They would see this as a betrayal of their sacred task.  So we have a great browser which doesn't implement features that some web sites have used.  Now for scene 2 of our little drama.

[End user] My Bank's internet banking system doesn't work with Mozilla - Mozilla must be broken
[Mozilla adherent] Its not Mozilla thats broken, your bank's web site doesn't adhere to W3C standards.  You should switch banks.
[End user] Fair enough.  Rather than switch browsers back to IE, which is really easy, I will change my bank account.

Doesn't gel either.  However this exact conversation (except for the last bit) is enacted on a regular basis on the official Mozilla forum.  And believe me they are serious about it.  There are people who have changed their bank account because their bank's web site doesn't comply with the W3C standard. 

If you ask why they don't create an 'IE compatability mode' they will turn the argument round and say its up to the webmasters round the planet to comply with W3C standards.  If they don't, then they are going to lose out to all those users who have W3C compliant browsers. 

A great argument if you have 50% of the market but it loses its force if you are down at 3%.  However enter AOL. 

AOL

By some strange quirk of fait AOL bought Netscape some years back, but they didn't use the Netscape browser because thay had a deal with Microsoft that put a link to AOL on every windows user's desktop.  Well that deal is finished and AOL is (maybe) going to  bundle the core browser module Gecko in with the AOL service.

Picture this. 

[AOL User]  I can't get to my Bank's web site now I have installed AOL 8.1.
[AOL Support] AOL 8.1 is fine, your bank's web site doesn't adhere to the W3C standard, you had better change banks.

I don't think so.  

In practice AOL are going very slowly with this. The latest AOL (V8 in the US) still uses IE except for Mac OS-X users who have Gecko. I suspect that there are not too many of those, so they make a good test market.

What happens next and what do we do about it? 

In practical terms any web site developed with a standard web editor should be W3C compliant, and should work on any browser.  This issue comes up if you are using more exotic Javascript features or are trying to link to MS Windows libraries.  Whatever happens with AOL, its a good thing to adhere to standards - if for no other reason than to future-proof your site.  So we recommend:

• Get a copy of Mozilla (http://www.mozilla.org)
• Test your client's sites and fix any problems that come up
• Validate sites with your web editor to make sure the HTML is valid
• Only use IE-specific features where there is a good business reason and explain to the client that this may have issues with future releases of AOL.
• Make sure that if you do use IE-specific features your web page still presents itself reasonably on Mozilla.

If you follow these procedures you should be reasonably prepared for the future.