Hannibal is
one of the regular contributors over at
ars technica. Not
only is he very knowledgeable on technical issues, but he is
an exceptionally good writer; his articles are always a
great place to learn a lot about something you're new to.
He has been writing on ars about his concerns about IE 5.5's
lack of W3C standards
compliance. I share his concerns, and
although IE is a good browser, from where I sit it sure
looks like MS are up to
their
old tricks. He gave a pointer to a
really good essay about the platform war coming to the
web.
I sent the essay to a friend, and he wrote back that it was
"very depressing". I agree that the prospect of a de facto,
IE-only web is not a happy thought. However, a slashdot reader pointed out
the other day that there is hope, from a surprising source.
When AOL 6.0 is released, which browser will it use? That's
right... the one they purchased not too long ago. ;-) A
standards-compliant Mozilla/Netscape running on millions of
AOL users' machines will be a powerful force in ensuring
that companies can't afford to make their web sites IE-only.
On a personal level, I'm renewing my commitment to making my
own web pages standards-compliant (viewable with any
compliant browser) and using a compliant browser myself.
Other resources:
Web standards
Any
browser campaign