The world's top browser makers have implemented the core W3C and ECMA web standards:
These standards make it possible for anyone to publish text, graphics, data driven graphics, and interactive text and graphics coherently on the web, for all kinds of devices, including desktops, notebooks, tablets, phones and televisions.
Web standards are maintained by open communities of experts and stakeholders who discuss, debate, resolve, publish and promote drafts and revisions of each standard.
But the web wasn't always defined like this.
October 20, 1997: The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint demanding a $1-million-a-day fine against Microsoft for its alleged violation of a 1995 consent decree. The complaint claims Microsoft acted unlawfully by forcing PC manufacturers to agree to bundle Internet Explorer with their computers before they could license Windows.
Back then, Internet Explorer wasn't very standards-compliant, or secure, or performant, but it was being pre-installed exclusively on more than 95% of the world's personal computers.
By 2007, a decade after the DOJ antitrust complaint was filed, Internet Explorer's market share was down to 80% and falling.
What was happening?
By 2008, the combined market share of standards-compliant browsers had grown to significant double digits in leading web markets, sparking participation, innovation, standardization, enjoyment, and most of all, enabling the mobile web.
Internet Explorer was being left behind, its market share declining for seven straight years. Hundreds of millions of PC users chose better experiences with other browsers.
Facing a loss of relevance, Microsoft eventually acted. Dean Hachamovitch, Ted Johnson, Patrick Dengler, and their teams at Microsoft introduced Internet Explorer 9 in 2010 with a public commitment to implement open web standards and engage constructively in W3C processes.
Publishers who can't rely on browser plug-ins to be installed can link to Google's free, open source SVG Web library to empower old browsers to render a modern web standard accurately.
In 2012, web standards work, all over the world, on Windows, Linux, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Nokia and Java enabled devices.
Publish with web standards in a few clicks from popular Windows programs. See SVGmaker examples in the gallery.