Working together for standards The Web Standards Project

Buzz Archives: Browsers

Bringing standards to Microsoft

WaSP Emeritus (and former fearless leader) Molly Holzschlag is settling into her new position at Microsoft this week and has begun reporting from the trenches with an overview of what she’ll be doing while she’s there.

By Aaron Gustafson | April 2nd, 2007

A band-aid for browsers

With tongue firmly in cheek, DOM Scripting Task Force member Dean Edwards says: Just what the world needs, another JavaScript library. That hasn't stopped him from creating Yet Another JavaScript Library Without Documentation™. But this isn't a big full-featured library along the lines of jQuery or YUI. Instead, this works more along ...

By Jeremy Keith | March 26th, 2007

Talking with Microsoft about IE.next

I was in Redmond on Friday to meet with a few folks on the Internet Explorer team to discuss improvements we (as in the WaSP DOM Scripting and Microsoft task forces, and the JS Ninjas) wanted to see in IE.next.

By Aaron Gustafson | February 4th, 2007

Current and Upcoming CSS3 Support in Opera

Here’s a look at CSS3 support and upcoming support in the Opera desktop browser.

By Molly E. Holzschlag | January 22nd, 2007

You can improve IE.next

If you’ve ever wanted the opportunity to tell Microsoft what they should do with IE next, now is the time.

By Aaron Gustafson | November 4th, 2006

Microsoft predicts swift adoption of IE7

Earlier this week, Chris Wilson of the IE team revealed some numbers he feels point to a swifter adoption of IE7 than previously thought.

By Aaron Gustafson | October 28th, 2006

Browser Updates for October 2006

Microsoft’s IE7 is out, Firefox 2 is on the horizon… and is there still room for Opera?

By Kimberly Blessing | October 20th, 2006

Video Presentation: Douglas Crockford on the “Theory of the DOM”

Douglas Crockford, discoverer of JSON and JavaScript evangelist/veteran has given a training on the theory of the DOM lately and the videos are available on the web. The course takes you through the theory of the DOM, how browsers implement it and what the problems with the DOM and the ...

By Christian Heilmann | October 18th, 2006

IE7 JavaScript Improvements

The IEBlog recently reported some improvements in IE7’s JavaScript engine.

By Dean Edwards | September 21st, 2006

IE7: The List is In

A comprehensive list of bug fixes, implementations and developer/designer resources for IE7 has been published by Markus Mielke of Microsoft (and also a member of the W3C CSS Working Group) on the IEBlog today.

By Molly E. Holzschlag | August 22nd, 2006

Flash, JavaScript, UX, standards, apologia, apologies, and one man’s opinions

The recent discussion of plug-in implementation, here and elsewhere, points to broader issues that affect everyone who is invested in web standards adoption.

By Ben Henick | August 18th, 2006

Flash, JavaScript, and web standards: like sodium and water?

As expected, Flash and such are proven a controversial topic.

By Ben Henick | August 17th, 2006

Safari for Windows?

Swift is a new open source browser based on Apple's WebCore & JavaScriptCore rendering and JavaScript engines. Warning: it's marked as 1.0pre alpha, and it is very much an alpha: very rough-looking UI, no scrollwheel support, pathetic form controls and I've had reports from colleagues that some folks can't even get ...

By Chris Kaminski | August 9th, 2006

Firefox Security Update

Firefox has issued an update for its browser across all platforms to improve security and stability.

By Molly E. Holzschlag | July 28th, 2006

IE6: the end is (hopefully) near

Hot on the heels of the IE7 Βeta 3 release, Microsoft has announced plans to roll out the final standalone version of IE7 via its Automatic Update service.

By Aaron Gustafson | July 26th, 2006

Firefox 2 Beta 1: Live Today

Within minutes of this post being published, Mozilla will be rolling out the Firefox 2 Beta 1 release. This is a developer preview release of Firefox, and includes a number of interface and technology implementations, changes and upgrades.

By Molly E. Holzschlag | July 12th, 2006

Lessons that the standardization process can teach us

Over at Six Apart they’re working to turn Trackback into a standard, and WaSP emeritus Anil Dash shares some of the wisdom he’s gained from the process. Some of the points he makes have bearing on the things we’re trying to accomplish over here at WaSP…

By Ben Henick | May 1st, 2006

A DOM Scripting Wishlist for Microsoft

Peter Paul Koch has kick-started a discussion called “IE 7 and JavaScript: what needs to be fixed?”

By Jeremy Keith | April 30th, 2006

Browser Junkies, Get a New Fix

Mozilla announce early alpha of Firefox 2, codenamed Bon Echo

By Ian Lloyd | March 22nd, 2006

IE 7 Beta Preview 2 Out Now

Microsoft announce release of IE 7 beta 2 after which no more CSS fixes will be addressed – this is as far as it goes for version 7.

By Ian Lloyd | March 21st, 2006

Microsoft IE7 Progress: Sneak Preview of MIX06 Release

I'm sitting here with Malarkey and Markus Mielke in Mandelieu, a beautiful town in the south of France. We're here attending the W3C Technical Plenary and Markus has been kind enough to give us a sneak preview of the IE7 release that's expected for the MIX06 event. We've been looking ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | March 5th, 2006

Yahoo! Developers: Setting a Standard for the New Professionalism

In an article published Monday, February 13, 2006, Yahoo! Senior Web Developer Nate Koechley outlines the Yahoo! concept of Graded Browser Support. The approach is a work of art so beautiful and sensible it literally made me weep for joy. In light of ongoing discussion regarding a new professionalism for Web ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | February 14th, 2006

!important Fixed in Later IE7 Releases

It was brought to my attention today that the IE7 Beta 2 Preview wasn't honoring the role of the !important declaration and as such was causing alternative box model hacks to fail. !important is important for several important reasons. First is the very reason !important exists, which is to ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | February 3rd, 2006

IE7 Beta 2 Preview Available to the Public

Microsoft today made Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 PREVIEW available to the public. Along with the download, they've posted a Developer and Web Developer Checklist to help you evaluate your sites, as well as the browser. Time to get to work! Happy testing... and don't forget to submit your feedback.

By Kimberly Blessing | January 31st, 2006

Star HTML and Microsoft IE7

Chris Wilson, Group Program Manager for IE Platform and Security at Microsoft, and Position is Everything's Big John Gallant have been having a conversation about * html in Microsoft's upcoming Internet Explorer 7 for Windows (IE7). Wilson has been encouraging CSS designers and developers to repair any bug-specific hacks ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | December 22nd, 2005

A Final End to IE/Mac

Microsoft has announced that they will cease all support for IE/Mac as of December 31, 2005 and will cease all distribution of the software on January 31, 2006. While IE/Mac has become something of a red-headed stepchild in the past couple years, it has a proud history of standards-related achievements, most ...

By Chris Kaminski | December 19th, 2005

The Bad Old Days Linger On

Most professional web developers understand why browser sniffing sucks, and have long since moved on to more robust techniques like object or property testing to make their sites degrade gracefully in less-capable user agents. But apparently Yahoo! Music didn't get the memo: their site still sniffs browsers, urging Firefox users ...

By Chris Kaminski | December 12th, 2005

Microsoft Tweaks IE’s Handling of ActiveX, Java

Microsoft has announced that they'll be changing the way IE handles ActiveX controls and Java applets to avoid liability in the Eolas patent suit. The suit, you'll recall, is about a patent held by the University of California and licenced to a company called Eolas. The patent ostensibly covers embedding multimedia ...

By Chris Kaminski | December 4th, 2005

Pandora’s Box (Model) of CSS Hacks And Other Good Intentions

This Thanksgiving I’ve decided it’s about time that I provided some more background and analysis on one of the things I am certainly unintentionally (in)famous for.

By Tantek Çelik | November 27th, 2005

IE7 Conditional Comments

In mid October, the IE Blog urged developers to stop using CSS hacks to workaround IE's problems, and start relying on Microsoft's proprietary conditional comments. I wrote up my thoughts about the new syntax, and it seemed practical enough considering that IE7 is looking to address most of the reasons ...

By Dave Shea | November 3rd, 2005

WaSP Microsoft Task Force Update: Upcoming Products, XAML, Acid2, SXSW, and IE7 Revealed

The WaSP Microsoft Task Force held another face-to-face meeting with available members on Tuesday. We met in a Starbucks along the waterfront in rainy Seattle. While the setting might have been a bit predictable, the conversation was unique and at times, very encouraging. WaSPs at the meeting were DL Byron ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | November 2nd, 2005

Recent Buzz

Our Work Here is Done

By Aaron Gustafson | March 1st, 2013

Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality.

When The Web Standards Project (WaSP) formed in 1998, the web was the battleground in an ever-escalating war between two browser makers—Netscape and Microsoft—who were each taking turns “advancing” HTML to the point of collapse. You see, in an effort to one-up each other, the two browsers introduced new elements and new ways of manipulating web documents; this escalated to the point where their respective 4.0 versions were largely incompatible.

Realizing that this fragmentation would inevitably drive up the cost of building websites and ran the risk of denying users access to content and services they needed, Glenn Davis, George Olsen, and Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded WaSP and rallied an amazing group of web designers and developers to help them push back. The WaSP’s primary goal was getting browser makers to support the standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

In 2001, with the browser wars largely over, WaSP began to shift its focus. While some members continued to work with browser vendors on improving their standards support, others began working closely with software makers like Macromedia to improve the quality of code being authored in tools such as Dreamweaver. And others began the hard slog of educating web designers and developers about the importance of using web standards, culminating in the creation of WaSP InterAct, a web curriculum framework which is now overseen by the W3C.

Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality. While there is still work to be done, the sting of the WaSP is no longer necessary. And so it is time for us to close down The Web Standards Project.

Many (if not all) of us are continuing to work in the world of web standards, but our work is now largely outside the umbrella of WaSP. If you are interested in continuing to work on web standards-related projects along with us, we humbly suggest you follow these projects:

• A List Apart – The magazine “for people who make websites” is run by WaSP founder Jeffrey Zeldman and is a consistent source of forward-thinking articles and tutorials.
• HTML5 Doctor – A solid resource and discussion forum on all things HTML5, brought to you by Bruce Lawson and his team.
• W3C Community Groups – If you have a passion for a specific web technology, you can help make it better by participating in one (or more) community groups. In particular, you might be interested in one of these: Core Mobile Web Platform, Responsive Images, Web Education, and Web Media Text Tracks.
• WebPlatform.org – A fantastic web standards resource, providing up-to-date documentation, Q&As, tutorials & more. Chris Mills, Doug Schepers, and a number of other standards advocates are involved in this project.
• Web Standards Sherpa – An educational resource founded by WaSP which continues to operate under the leadership of Chris Casciano, Virginia DeBolt, Aaron Gustafson, and Emily Lewis.
• Web Standards + Small Business – An outreach project started by WaSP that educates small businesses about why they should care about web standards. This project is overseen by Aaron Gustafson.

The job’s not over, but instead of being the work of a small activist group, it’s a job for tens of thousands of developers who care about ensuring that the web remains a free, open, interoperable, and accessible competitor to native apps and closed eco-systems. It’s your job now, and we look forward to working with you, and wish you much success.

Nota bene: In the near future, we will be making a permanent, static archive of webstandards.org and some of our other resources like WaSP Interact to preserve them as a resource and to provide a record of our 15-year mission to improve the web.
Bruce Lawson and Steph Troeth contributed to this post.

Filed in WaSP Announcement | Comments (89)

More Buzz articles

Title	Author
Call for action on Vendor Prefixes	Rachel Andrew
An End to Aging IE Installs	Aaron Gustafson
Beyond the Blue Beanie?	Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis
The Sherpas are Here	Aaron Gustafson