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"The underlying technology of the web browser has reached the point where standards compliance must take precedence. In order for the web to maintain its bullet-train rate of innovation, the web browser must become a stable building block for site designers, just as standardization on Windows has encouraged innovation in the PC space." - David Kerley, senior analyst, Jupiter Communications

Why support web standards? It's pretty clear to us here at Netscape that a standards-compliant browser provides developers and end users with the following benefits:

<ul>

<li>ability to access rich web content and applications across a variety of hardware platforms and devices

<li>reduced cost for content and application development by enabling development to a single specification

<li>increased innovation by providinga rich, standards-based platform for application development

<li>freedom of choice by reducing switching costs between vendors and applications

<li>investment protection by enabling the creation of applications built on stable industry standards rather than proprietary technology subject to change </li">

<li>the preservation of vigorouscompetition between vendors by preventing vendor lock-in

</ul>

Given the demand by developers and users for web standards compliance in browsers, it's surprising to find newly-released browsers that don't adhere to published, mature web standards. Yet even brief testing reveals dramatic differences in the scope, robustness, and consistency across platforms of the W3C standards support in the latest releases of Internet Explorer and the Netscape Gecko browser engine in the Mozilla M13 milestone build. This document compares the two browsers' support for the following:

<ul>

<li><a href="#5">Document Object Model (DOM)</a>

<li><a href="#3">Extensible Markup Language (XML)</a>

<li><a href="#4">Resource Description Framework (RDF)</a>

<li><a href="#1">Cascading Style Sheets, Level 1 (CSS-1)</a>

<li><a href="#2">HyperText Markup Language 4.0 (HTML 4.0)</a>

</ul>

Netscape Gecko's robust support for W3C standards for the first time

enables the development of sophisticated, entirely standards-based applications.

Developers are already applauding this commitment to enabling the platform,

device, browser, and vendor-independent web applications of the future.

Meanwhile, industry leaders like IBM, Intel, Liberate, NetObjects, Nokia,

red Hat, and Sun Microsystems are <a

href="http://home.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease799.html">adopting</a>

Netscape Gecko to power a new generation of web browsers, web-enabled

applications, and web browsing devices that will bring low cost, trouble-free

Internet access to millions of new users who lack it today. To hasten

the web application and web device revolutions, Netscape Gecko also

supports free, open source, cross-platform <a

href="http://home.netscape.com/browsers/gecko/whitepaper.pdf">Netscape Gecko

Technologies</a> that make it easier to achieve this unprecedented standards

support across platforms and devices by speeding the implementation

of standards-compliant browsers, applications, set top boxes, and browsing

appliances.

Document Object Model (DOM)<A NAME="5"></A>

As the standard itself states, the Document Object Model Level 1 provides

"a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs

and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure

and style of documents. The Document Object Model provides a standard

set of objects for representing HTML and XML documents, a standard model

of how these objects can be combined, and a standard interface for accessing

and manipulating them. Vendors can support the DOM as an interface to

their proprietary data structures and APIs, and content authors can

write to the standard DOM interfaces rather than product-specific APIs,

thus increasing interoperability on the web."

Robust support for

the W3C DOM is perhaps the most critical requirement for enabling the

next generation of platform and device independent web applications

that will have functionality and user interfaces equivalent to current

native applications, because it is the W3C DOM that opens up the content

and format of the page to manipulation from languages like JavaScript.

The W3C DOM, level 1 has two parts: DOM 1 Core and DOM 1 HTML. DOM 1

Core provides a crucial set of core methods for reading, writing, and

changing the content of documents on any platform or device--methods

that work equally well for HTML and XML. DOM 1 HTML provides a set of

convenience extensions that are specific to HTML documents only.