The Future of Browsing - The Direction of Web Standards

January 28, 2010 · by Joseph D. Lien

With the Internet changing at a frenzied pace, we can expect big changes to how we will soon use the Web. In an upcoming series, I will present some ideas about where the future of Web browsing might be headed and what we, as users of the Web, can look forward to in coming years. In this article, we will look at the direction of Web standards, why they are important to normal users of the Web, and the state of progress of these standards over the past.

A quick description: The term "Web standards" refers to the 'rules' to be followed when creating web pages. This encompasses languages like HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that is used for structuring documents, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that is used to control the look and formatting, ECMAscript (JavaScript), used to make interactive and dynamic websites, and SVG (scalable vector graphics) that allow for images that can change their size as needed and still look sharp.

These standards ensure that the way web pages work and look is similar between different browsers and devices. During the mid-to-late-nineties, when the Web was relatively immature, the coding of web pages was basically dictated by the makers of the major Web browsers. Each vendor had different ways of implementing page design, so Web sites had to detect the browser and serve a slightly different version of each page that exploited quirks in the browsers to work as intended. This presented frustrating problems to users with other browsers, or people who wanted to surf with an alternative platform like a mobile phone.

Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of champions of standardization (such as Opera Software), we are seeing the standards become embraced universally. These days, there is a greater degree of openness to the standardization process, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) ensures that its specifications can be implemented on a Royalty-Free basis. Through the use of emerging standards like HTML5 and CSS3, developers can easily create web pages that look spectacular, and work consistently across platforms and all the latest browsers.

New standards allow for great elegance of design, but few developers are brave enough to use these standards when they know that they won't work for over 15% of people on the Web because they still use the original version of the browser that was bundled with their operating system in 2002.

It is unfortunate that many users either cannot or will not upgrade -- not only will many sites display improperly in these obsolete browsers, but importantly, there are significant security risks for not upgrading, as was highlighted by some recent security incidents that prompted government warnings about using insecure browsers.

With that, I'd like to make some wildly speculative guesses about future of web standards and browsers.

Less reliance on plugins

Advances in web standards should allow significantly more capabilities to be implemented natively within browsers, independent of the vendor. This means that we will see rich, smoothly animated graphics, video, and sound without having to download and upgrade plugins. Although plugins will not go away, this will give developers and users greater flexibility.

A useable Web from anywhere, with any device

It doesn't take much imagination to see that in the future, use of the Web will not be tied to PCs at our desks. In fact, the Gartner research company has predicted that by 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device worldwide - a vision that Opera has also had for quite some time. Thanks to the progress of Web standards, users of the web should have a useable and consistent experience regardless of what device they use to get on the Web.

Always up-to-date software allows for faster advancement of the Web

Because it is important for browsers close security vulnerabilities as they are discovered, and because it's becoming easier than ever to keep software updated, I hope that we eventually achieve a situation where almost no one uses browsers that are years out of date. That will mean that as new technologies become available, developers can freely use them to improve Web applications to allow for more uses, better interfaces, and fancier effects.

More on the Web, Less on Our PCs

Advances in Web standards and browsers will allow for sophisticated applications that work as well or better in your Web browser as they once did on your PC, and the line between Web applications and local applications will blur. With this paradigm shift, you now have access to an application or a game from anywhere, and it will work in any browser, on any device.

If the current trends continue, it shouldn't take long before these predictions come to pass given that the pace of technological advancement is ever-increasing. It is exciting to think of the possibilities that the Web will offer us as it becomes more useful and accessible to everyone all over the world -- thanks in part to standardization.

Readers' comments 17

Left under the original article, as archived.

tomassplatchThursday, January 28, 2010 2:18:03 PM
hey, nice to see these articles from you, joseph! keep them coming!
great effort to educate masses
I would be interested about the history of W3C and about the process of creating a web standards. I vaguely know that there have been some dead-end standards like XHTML2 and that there were some controversies in early days of w3c concerning standards propositions ...
This would help us understand better the current war of HTML5 video format
seriousThursday, January 28, 2010 2:27:16 PM
I most def. hope the future of web browsing is towards larger fonts
random414Thursday, January 28, 2010 2:55:08 PM
Great article!

I like the way the text flows, but I would work a bit more on the design, I refer here to the images used.
Joseph D. LienThursday, January 28, 2010 3:21:39 PM
Originally posted by serious:

I most def. hope the future of web browsing is towards larger fonts

Some of the standards are intended to make pages scalable so that one can enlarge text and zoom pages. (Opera has had very good zooming that has reflowed the page in a reasonable fashion since far before it was common - try the + and - keys). SVG graphics and improved layouts are other elements that will help this trend.

This is very important not only to improve accessibility support for those who might have poor vision, for example, but is relevant to browsing on other platforms like HDTV, ultra-high-resolution displays, and mobile phones, where the pages need to scale quite a bit to be usable.

So in a way, things should allow for the use of larger fonts and better proportions
TamilThursday, January 28, 2010 3:52:51 PM
vipin kumarThursday, January 28, 2010 5:40:50 PM
IKokeThursday, January 28, 2010 6:07:25 PM
Mağruf ÇolakoğluThursday, January 28, 2010 8:51:13 PM
Charles SchlossThursday, January 28, 2010 9:42:39 PM
d4rkn1ghtThursday, January 28, 2010 10:20:46 PM
L2D2Thursday, January 28, 2010 11:19:43 PM
This is one female who will never give up her PC in favor of a phone! I love my PC, and as my eyesight gets worse, a phone is just never going to be practical for me to use on the web.

Am I going crazy or has the text font changed on the blogs? Mine looks different.
sk roquibul alamFriday, January 29, 2010 4:36:36 AM
two factors which make mobile a frontliner: A. power of communication and B. portability. yes, all of our -tops suffer from the absence of this twins. the only negative prospect of mobiles was the space and elongated functions which, today's mobiles, are sweeping aside. we now have 128 mb ROM n RAM. even some manufacturers are promising to provide us the space of 1 tb. but time and again, when enhanced operation are questioned , i believe mobiles still have a long way to go.

and as the standardization is preferred, i think forcing the users to abide by the rules put forth by the web organisation would be resulting in fowl oppressions. one thing is old and popular- FREE. use it, access through it.
Joseph D. LienFriday, January 29, 2010 9:30:28 AM
Originally posted by L2D2:

This is one female who will never give up her PC in favor of a phone! I love my PC, and as my eyesight gets worse, a phone is just never going to be practical for me to use on the web.

I doubt that people will in general "give up their PCs" any time soon, but it's clear that our web surfing will be augmented by mobile devices. I expect that in a few years, we'll see compact eyewear that will make it much more practical to use a mobile device to actually have useful media experiences and get reading and work done in a reasonably effective way, away from our desks.
civitassterFriday, January 29, 2010 9:58:26 AM
that the security
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001850.html
Сергей КуртеновFriday, January 29, 2010 10:26:34 AM
Cutting SpoonMonday, February 1, 2010 5:35:58 AM
"fowl" oppression? The web standards may be designed by a committee, but this is not the setting of "Brazil"(film).

This is not a matter of forcing users, this is a matter of making life easier for programmers. Good news.
AnimatikerThursday, February 4, 2010 12:05:07 AM
In 2006, I tried to make my first website. In 2007, I took distance from that wish, desillusioned by the fact that the puzzle of needed languages and the tricks it needs to bypass the crazy basic logics are far above my capacity. Since some days I have approached again the subject and see the developments of that crazyness - didn't see that last time. It's sticking to the old basics and not starting anew with the experiences made which makes the field - like so many others, including life itself - a mess. How about starting a new language which takes into account the uses from the beginning and makes speaking and using it simply instead of patching and clustering up the old thing over and over? Add up less orientation on marketing limiting possibilities (commercial individualism) and more on communication and flexibility ... looking at the potential result can evoke the tears with respect to what we have. I don't look deeper, as I don't want to wade in the water.