The web is getting more colourful and animated every day. The two leading browser makers, Microsoft and Mozilla, presented new versions of their software at the recent CeBIT technology fair in Hanover, Germany. Both support videos and animations in the new HTML5 standard.
"Integration of all HTML5 elements is very important to us," Mozilla head Gary Kovacs told the German Press Agency dpa. "It's fascinating how much it enriches the web experience."
While Microsoft hasn't yet indicated precisely when the ninth version of Internet Explorer (IE 9) will be released, it is currently in the final "release candidate" test version. Microsoft, for its part, has also worked HTML5 into the software's structure, although in a more conservative way. Microsoft technology consultant Daniel Melanchthon emphasised at the CeBIT fair that HTML has not yet been ratified as a standard and remains in "working draft" status.
IE 9 supports significant HTML5 components like the integration of video elements and canvas elements for interactive graphics. Other HTML5 elements won't be available, since it would be "irresponsible to make them available to end customers while things are still in flux," he says.
Microsoft is instead focusing on IE 9 features like speed boosts gained by tapping the graphics processor, energy-saving modes for mobile devices in battery mode, and a more orderly user interface for the programme. "The web browser is the fastest that we have on the market," Melanchthon says. "We also believe that it's too far ahead for other browsers to catch it in the future."
To prove this point, Melanchthon launched a web application developed by Microsoft to include HTML5 - and indeed, IE 9 pulled it up quicker than Firefox and Google's Chrome browser.
"They depict the page significantly slower than IE 9 does," Melanchthon says. IE 9 places the tabs holding the different webpages at any given time along the address bar. There's enough space to hold up to five tabs - the amount that the average user has open at any given time, Melanchthon explains.
Heavy users can arrange the tabs to appear under the address bar. When a new tab is opened, a list of most-frequently opened websites is shown - a useful feature already available in Apple's Safari browser, for example.
One new feature in IE 9, the tracking protection, promises better security for personal data. It can be used to block phishing and analysis services typically used for advertising purposes. "It is very important that we afford the user full control of his own data," says Microsoft's Dorothee Ritz.
It should be noted that the protection is switched off by default and must first be configured by the user. Firefox achieves the same functionality using special add-ons.
Over at the Mozilla Project, CEO Kovacs praises IE 9 as a "nice looking product" that supports more open standards than before. "We're not so concerned on whether we win or they win," Kovacs says. The Open Source project is instead primarily focused on a uniform web experience, he indicates, and that on as many different types of devices as possible.
Thus the roll-out of Firefox 4 will also see a version released at around the same time for the Android operating system. The Firefox Sync tool will make it possible to keep bookmarks and an overview of recently called-up websites uniform across all devices.
Kovacs believes that Firefox can continue to gain ground in the competition with IE 9, Safari, Chrome and Opera - not least because it supports a broad range of operating systems. While IE 9 runs only on computers with Windows Vista or Windows 7, Firefox works on all Windows versions. "We also support XP," Kovacs says. "That is the platform where the greatest number of Windows users can be found."