News ⮞ 1998–2023 News Archive
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This lists 1998–2023 browser newsitems. The latest items appear first.
For recent font news, see the Fonts ⮞ News page. For older font news, see News ⮞ Font News Archive.
2023
This lists 2023 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Dec 15/2023, Epic 120.0.6099.71. NB : is Chome 120 or Safari to browser sniffers.Get It⮞
Oct 5/2023, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2:
the W3C updated the WCAG and related documents.
Sep 27/2023, WHATWG Compatibility Living Standard updated. Read⮞NB: it has no changelog.
Feb 14/2023, Microsoft Internet Explorer // Windows 10:
Internet Explorer is being disabled on Windows 10 today.More⮞
2022
This lists 2022 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Nov 18/2022, Epic 104.0.5112.81:
feature changes, bugs+security flaws fixed NB : it is Chrome 104 or Safari to naïve browser sniffers. Get It⮞
Nov 16/2022, Waterfox Classic 2022.11
NB: naïve browser sniffers may say it’s Firefox 68. Get It⮞
Jun 22/2022, ECMAscript 2022:
ECMAscript 2021 (12th Edition / JavaScript 12) Standard,
ECMAScript 2021 Internationalization API Specification
Feb 13/2022, Browser News:
the browser sniffer’s
cBrowser class has two new properties: engine, the browser engine name,
and engineVersion, the browser engine version.
Jan 19/2022, Opera Web3 Crypto Browser 84β: Opera revealed betas of its Web3 crypto browser More⮞
Jan 5/2022, Unicode 14 Paperbacks:
the Unicode Consortium published a pair of Unicode 14 Paperbacks.
2021
This lists 2021 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Oct 17/2021, Browser News:
the Browser News was reörganized, with news about site design tools, deployment tools, editors, operating systems, and other tools moved to a new
Tools News page. Keep up-to-date: regularly visit this page, plus the Font News and Tools News pages.
Sep 28/2021, W3C DOM Review Draft,
new recommendation. Read
June 17/2021, W3C Web Audio API,
new recommendation. Read
Apr 30/2021, Making Content Usable for People with Cognitive & Learning Disabilities:
recommendation issued. Read
2020
This lists 2020 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Nov 12/2020, Apple MacOS 10.14, 10.15:
Apple updated MacOS to fix security flaws. More⮞
Oct 1/2020, Apple MacOS 10.14:
Apple fixed MacOS security flaws. More⮞
Sep 24/2020, Apple MacOS 10.13, 10.14, 10.15:
Apple fixed MacOS security flaws. More⮞
May 22/2020, Microsoft Windows:
Microsoft has an irregular Windows update for some users. More⮞ WindowsUpdate⮞
Mar 30/2020, Microsoft Windows 10:
Microsoft has irregular VPN updates for some Windows 10 users. More⮞ WindowsUpdate⮞
Jan 29/2020, Unicode Emoji 13.0:
the Unicode Consortium revealed its Emoji 13 emojis,
with 62 new emojis, which should start trickling into emoji fonts. More⮞
2019
This lists recent newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Nov 25/2019, RIPE’s iPv4 Addresses:
RIPE, which issues IP addresses for Europe, parts of Asia, and the Middle East, has run out of iPv4 addresses,
making it even more critical to expand the use of iPv6. More⮞
Sep 1/2019, Browser News:
the cBrowser constructor in my public browser sniffer has been updated to recognize the Edge browser.
2018
Dec 16/2018, SQLite Security flaw:
a serious security vulnerability in SQLite has been revealed, affecting many apps, including browsers.
Users should watch out for fixes. More⮞
Apr 10/2018, Web Authentication:
the W3C issued the Web Authentication (WebAuthn) Candidate Recommendation with upcoming support by major browsers. More⮞ More⮞
Jan 30/2018, Indexed Database API:
the W3C issued the Indexed Database API 2.0 Recommendation. Read⮞
2017
This lists 2017 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Dec 14/2017, HTML 5.2:
the W3C issued the HTML 5.2 Recommendation. Read⮞
Dec 6/2017, ECMAScript Specification Suite, 3rd Edition:
ECMA updated the ECMAScript Specification Suite. Read⮞
Oct 5/2017, Mozilla Firefox XP & Vista Support:
Mozilla will support Windows XP & Vista in Firefox ESR until Jun 2018. More⮞
Oct 3/2017, HTML 5.1:
the W3C issued the HTML 5.1 2nd Edition Recommendation. Read⮞
2016
This lists 2016 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Nov 1/2016, HTML 5.1:
the W3C issued the HTML 5.1 Recommendation. Read⮞
2015
This lists 2015 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Jun 23/2015, MathML 3.0:
MathML was made an ISO/IEC international standard.
“MathML is an XML application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure
and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the
World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text.” Read⮞
Feb 26/2015, HTML5 Image Description Extension:
the W3C issued a recommendation for the HTML5
IMG longdesc attribute. Read⮞2014
This lists 2014 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Dec 9/2014, HTML5 Differences from HTML4:
the W3C issued a document listing the HTML5 differences from HTML4. Read⮞
Oct 28/2014, HTML 5:
the W3C issued the HTML 5 standard.
It is especially relevant today, as many recent browsers support elements of HTML 5. Read⮞.
Related is A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML.
Aug 7/2014, Microsoft Internet Explorer:
after Jan 12, 2016, Microsoft will only support IE9 on Windows Vista SP2 & Server 2008 SP2,
& Windows 11 on Windows 7 SP1, 8.1, Server 2008 R2 SP1, & Server 2012 R2. More⮞
Apr 23/2014, Google Web Designer:
Mozilla issued a beta of its web design software. More⮞
Apr 8/2014, Microsoft Windows XP:
Microsoft ended support of Windows XP. More⮞
Mar 24/2014, Top Level Domain Names:
ICANN has published a list of new delegated TLDs. More⮞
2013
This lists 2013 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Dec 28/2013, Browser Sniffer:
my browser sniffer was modified to cope with
userAgent
changes in IE 11 & in Opera 15 (and up).Sep 11/2013, Website Validator Suite:
the W3C introduced a for-pay validation service. More⮞
Jul 30/2013, Web Storage:
the W3C issued a web storage recommendation. More⮞
Jul 8/2013✦ MSN TV to Shut Down:
Microsoft will shut down MSN TV in September. More⮞
May 31/2013, Mozilla Camino [MacOS]:
Development of Camino has ceased. More⮞
Feb 26/2013, Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7:
Microsoft issued IE 10 for Windows 7. Get It⮞
2012
This lists 2012 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Jun 19/2012, CSS3 Media Queries:
the W3C released the Media Queries Recommendation,
useful for adapting web pages to diverse media. Read…it]
Feb 8/2012, Nu Markup Validation Service:
the W3C released a new validation service. Use It⮞
2011
This lists 2011 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Aug 9/2011, HTML 5:
the W3C published a draft of HTML 5: Edition for Web Authors. Read⮞
Jun 20/2011, Top Level Domain Names:
ICANN approved a plan to allow TLDs to be any substring in any language; e.g. IBM could get domain names
ending in .ibm. Read⮞
Jun 7/2011, CSS 2.1:
the W3C published the Cascading Style Sheets 2.1 Specification. Read⮞
Feb 3/2011, IPv4 Addresses:
the Number Resource Organization revealed that all IPv4 addresses are now allocated,
making the move to IPv6 more urgent. More⮞ More⮞
2010
This lists 2010 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Nov 24/2010, xHTML 1.1 2nd Editions:
the W3C revised 3 XHTML 1.1 recommendations, Module-based XHTML, XHTML Basic 1.1,
& XHTML-Print, with corrections to errata.
Oct 30/2010, ICRA R.I.P.: FOSI, the Family Online Safety Institute,
appears to have quietly killed its ICRA service for creating content rating labels.
Jul 27/2010, Unicorn Validator:
the W3C announced an all-in-one validator which validates markup, CSS, mobile, & newsfeed code. Use It⮞
Jul 13/2010, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 R.I.P.:
Microsoft ended support of Windows 2000 & IE 5.01, with no future security fixes for either.
Users should switch to a modern browser.
Jun 17/2010, User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0:
the W3C updated this draft recommendation to help make browsers & media players
friendlier to the disabled. Read⮞
2009
This lists 2009 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Dec 17/2009, Linux Moonlight 2.0:
Novell updated Moonlight, its open source implementation of Silverlight for Linux. Get It⮞
Dec 9/2009, .post TLD:
ICANN assigned the .post TLD to the Universal Postal Union. More⮞
Dec 8/2009, Namespaces in XML 1.0, 3rdEd:
the W3C amended the Namespaces in XML 1.0 specification with corrections &
clarifications.
Oct 20/2009, Extended Guidelines for Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 Note:
the W3C issued this document to supplement the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0. Read⮞
Oct 20/2009, XForms 1.1:
the W3C updated the Xforms Recommendation. Read⮞
Feb 12/2009, Linux Moonlight 1.0:
Moonlight, an open source implementation of Silverlight for Linux, appeared. Get It⮞
Jan 28/2009, XHTML Media Types (2nd Edition):
the W3C updated its document which recommends how to deliver XHTML pages to user agents,
including user agents like IE which don’t specifically support XHTML. Read⮞
2008
This lists 2008 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Dec 22/2008, SVG Tiny 1.2:
the W3C issued the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny 1.2
specification.
Dec 15/2008, AOL Desktop 1.5 [MacOS]:
AOL updated its MacOS browser suite.
Users should update. Get It⮞
Note that it isn’t related to the similarly named AOL Desktop 10 [Windows].
Dec 8/2008, W3C mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0:
the W3C issued a recommendation for testing sites for
mobile devices, and deployed a matching MobileOK checker which
warns of problems in sites for mobile devices.
Dec 1/2008, SMIL 3.0:
the W3C updated the SMIL standard, which enables designers to create interactive multimedia presentations. Read⮞
Nov 26/2008, XML 1.0 5thEd:
the W3C amended the XML 1.0
Recommendation, with corrections & clarifications.
Oct 24/2008, New gTLD Program:
ICANN is open to new TLDs, possibly greatly expanding the number of TLDs, and has created a new central resource about this. see it⮞
Aug 29/2008, Mobile Browser Recommendations:
the W3C issued three documents related to browsers for mobile devices, Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0, XHTML Basic 1.1 Recommendation,
& Mobile Web Application Best Practices.
Apr 8/2008, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 & 7:
having had made an agreement with Eolas, Microsoft’s latest security update to IE 6 & 7 also removed a feature whereby users have to click on
“click to activate” to make some controls work. More⮞
Designers should ignore this change at this time: other brower makers haven’t made such agreements, so some browsers
will continue to require the user to click on controls; also, not all IE users will update their browsers.
2007
This lists 2007 newsitems which haven’t been updated:
Dec 6/2007, AOL Desktop [Windows XP ]& Vista:
AOL quietly issued its new Windows browser suite, earlier code-named Helix.
Note that AOL has a different suite for MacOS which has the same name.
Oct 26/2007, IPv6 Factsheet:
ICANN issued an interesting factsheet about IPv6. More⮞
Oct 15/2007, Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs):
ICANN began public tests of IDNs which have international characters in TLDs & sub-domains. More⮞
Aug 10/2007, Microsoft Windows Script 5.7 [Windows 2000]& XP:
Microsoft updated its script engine.
Users should get it. Windows 2000⮞ Windows XP⮞
Jul 13/2007, PHP 4 Support to End:
the PHP team revealed that support of PHP 4 would end at the end of 2007. More⮞
Jun 21/2007, AOL - The Ride is Over:
AOL has removed all links for downloading OpenRide, which must now be considered extinct.
Apr 12/2007, Internationalization Best Practices: Specifying Language in XHTML & HTML Content:
the W3C issued this working group note for those making web pages for international audiences. More⮞
Mar 7/2007, HTML:
the W3C started a working group to plan a successor to HTML 4, a successor that is not based on XML, as XHTML is. More⮞
Jan 22/2007, New XML Standards:
the W3C approved 8 new XML standards: XQuery 1.0, XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM), XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization, XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0 (XQueryX),
and XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics. More⮞
2006
This lists 2006 newsitems that haven’t been updated:
Dec 5/2006, XSL 1.1:
the W3C updated the Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) 1.0 Recommendation, including significant added features.
XSL 1.0 enables designers to say how content should be styled, laid out, & paginated. Read⮞
Nov 30/2006, IBM Home Page Reader:
IBM killed its browser for those who are blind or near-blind; IBM doesn’t offer a similar product to replace it.
Oct 18/2006, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 [Windows XP SP2]:
Microsoft released IE7. Get It⮞
Sep 21/2006, Language Tags:
the IETF issued two new specifications for language tags, which are nicely
explained in a W3C article, Language tags in HTML and XML.
Aug 16/2004, XML 1.1 2ndEd:
the W3C amended the XML 1.1 Recommendation & Namespaces in XML 1.1 with corrections & clarifications.
Jul 11/2006, Windows 98, 98SE, & ME:
Microsoft ended all support of Windows 98, 98SE, & ME. This affects about 5% of users. More⮞
May 10/2006, AOL Explorer 1.5 [Windows]:
AOL updated its free IE-based browser.
Apr 21/2006, Mozilla 1.7.13:
Mozilla.org updated its browser suite to fix bugs & security flaws.
Users should get it. More⮞
Apr 11/2006, Microsoft FrontPage:
Microsoft will kill FrontPage in late 2006, replacing it with products such as its new Expression Web Designer. More⮞
Feb 22/2006, MSN-TV 2:
Microsoft updated the software for its TV web appliance to v1.3 build 6341. More⮞
2005
This lists 2005 newsitems that haven’t been updated:
Oct 7/2005, AOL 10.3.7 [MacOS]:
AOL updated its Gecko-based MacOS browser suite.
Aug 23/2005, Accessibility:
the W3C published Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization
to help organizations develop their own customized business case for Web accessibility.Read⮞
Jul 5/2005, IBM Web Browser 2.0.5:
IBM updated its OS/2 Gecko-based browser to Gecko 1.7.5.
Mar 11/2005, MSN Explorer for MacOS Killed:
Microsoft revealed that it will cease support for MSN Explorer for MacOS in May. More⮞
Jan 26/2005, Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs):
a proposed standard has been created for IRIs. IRIs may be thought of as internationalized URIs: like an URI, an IRI can
specify web addresses, but an IRI is Unicode rather than ASCII, and therefore can contain international characters. More⮞ More⮞ More⮞
2004
This lists 2004 newsitems that haven’t been updated:
Oct 28/2004, XML Schema 2nd Edition:
the W3C updated this recommendation, the specification for XML schemas, correcting errors in the 1st Edition. Read⮞
XML schemas "define shared markup vocabularies and the structure of XML documents using those vocabularies."
Sep 7/2004, SSML 1.0:
the W3C issued the Speech Synthesis Markup Language
(SSML) 1.0 Recommendation.
Jul 29/2004, MSN Explorer 9.10 [Windows]:
Microsoft updated its MSN browser suite.
Apr 7/2004, DOM Level 3:
the W3C issued the Document
Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification & the Document
Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Load and Save Specification.
Feb 12/2004, Rich Media Banner Guidelines:
the IAB updated its guidelines for rich media
banners, including recommended maximum file sizes. More⮞
/2004, Digital Certificates:
some of Microsoft’s digital certificates expire this week. The certificate for its JVM can’t be renewed:
a court settlement with Sun forbids this. Others could be renewed, but patches would be needed.
Some sites will break, and some display warnings, unless patches are released. More⮞
2003
This lists 2003 newsitems that haven’t been updated:
Dec 3/2003, MSN Explorer 2.0.1 [MacOS]:
Microsoft updated its MSN browser suite for MacOS to fix issues with MacOS 10.3 (Panther).
Users should get it.
Nov 10/2003, PNG Specification (2ndEd):
the W3C updated the PNG graphics specification
with clarifications & corrections; this is also an ISO/IEC international standard. Read⮞
Oct 15/2003, MSN-TV 2.8.2:
Microsoft updated its TV-centred browser. More⮞
Oct 14/2003, XML Events:
the W3C issued this recommendation.
"The XML Events module provides XML languages with the ability to uniformly integrate event
listeners and associated event handlers with DOM
Level 2 event interfaces. This provides an interoperable way of associating behaviors with
document-level markup." Read⮞
Jul 11/2003, IE 5.1.7 [Mac]:
Microsoft updated IE for Apple’s Mac O/S 8 & 9, including security fixes.
Users should get it. Get It⮞
Jun 24/2003, SOAP 1.2:
the W3C issued the SOAP 1.2 Recommendation, providing the definition of the XML-based
information which can be used for exchanging structured and typed information between peers
in a decentralized, distributed environment. More⮞
Jun 16, 2003 ✦ IE 5.2.3 [MacOS]:
Microsoft updated IE for Apple’s MacOS, including security fixes.
Users should get it. Get It⮞
May 26/2003, W3C Note — Web Standards Switch:
this describes a process for making existing websites standards-compliant. Read⮞
May 26/2003, W3C Note — Log Validator:
this tool reports a site’s most visited invalid pages, helping
you decide which pages should next be made standards-compliant. Read⮞
Apr 11/2003, HotJava R.I.P.:
Sun Systems ended support for its HotJava browser,
but still offers it in its archives.
Feb 18, 2003 ✦ AOL-TV R.I.P.:
AOL discontinued its TV-based Internet appliance. More⮞
Jan 30/2003, W3C Note — Common User Agent Problems:
this updated note lists common browser problems due to poor compliance with standards, and details
what the browsers should do; this can be used to supplement the standards. Read⮞
2002
This lists 2002 newsitems that haven’t been updated:
Oct 30/2000, Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0:
the W3C updated these guidelines. Read⮞
Sep 19/2002, IE [HP-UX & Solaris]:
Microsoft recently killed its browser for HP-UX & Sun Solaris.
Sep 4/2002, Opera 5.12 [OS/2]:
Opera Software updated its OS/2 browser. More⮞
Aug 1/2002, xHTML 1.0 (2nd Edition):
the W3C updated the xHTML 1.0 Recommendation, incorporating errata & user
comments; there are no substantive changes. Read⮞
Apr 23/2002, Opera 5.14 [Symbian O/S]:
Opera Software updated its v5 browser for the Symbian O/S.
Apr 16/2002, P3P 1.0:
the W3C released the P3P 1.0 Specification.
P3P enables designers to define and publish their website privacy policies, and helps
automate how the policies are read. Read⮞
Apr 10/2002, Opera 6.0 β 1 [QNX]:
Opera Software issued the first beta of its v6 browser server for QNX. Get It⮞
Feb 11/2002, P3P Guide 1.0:
the W3C updated the P3P 1.0 Deployment Guide.
P3P enables designers to publish privacy policies in a machine-readable syntax. Read⮞
Jan 31/2002, xHTML+SMIL Profile:
the W3C issued this note integrating a SMIL 2.0 subset with xHTML,
with modules for animation, content control, media objects, timing & synchronization,
time manipulations, and transition effects. Read⮞
Jan 1/2002, Euro Currency:
Microsoft has a site telling how to adapt its products to the new Euro currency. More⮞
Note that the Euro character is now in all of Microsoft’s recently updated core web fonts: users should upgrade.
2001
This lists 2001 newsitems that haven’t been updated:
Sep 5/2001, SMIL Animation:
the W3C issued the SMIL Animation Recommendation, a subset of SMIL 2.0.
SMIL Animation enables designers to create animated multimedia presentations. Read⮞
Aug 8/2001, Opera 5.2 [QNX]:
Opera Software issued its v5 browser for QNX.
This version supports Unicode, soon to appear in Opera on other platforms. Get It⮞
Aug 3/2001, IE 5.5 SP2:
Microsoft issued 5.5 Service Pack 2 for Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4, & 2000. Get It⮞
July 18/2001, WebTV Renamed:
Microsoft renamed WebTV to ‘MSN TV’, a change rumoured two months ago. More⮞
Jun 27/2001, XML Base:
the W3C issued this XML Recommendation. Read⮞
Jun 27/2001, XML Linking Language 1.0:
the W3C issued this XML Recommendation. Read⮞
May 31/2001, xHTML 1.1:
the W3C issued this modularized recommendation, based on xHTML 1.0 Strict. Read⮞
May 31/2001, Ruby Annotation:
the W3C issued this recommendation, defining
ruby markup
as an xHTML module. Read⮞
Apr 10/2001, Modularization of xHTML:
the W3C issued this recommendation, telling how to subset and extend xHTML for
appliances, mobile devices, & other emerging platforms. Read⮞
2000
This lists 2000 newsitems that haven’t been updated:
Dec 19/2000, xHTML Basic:
the W3C issued the "xHTML Basic" Recommendation.
xHTML Basic is an xHTML subset suitable for small information appliances. Read⮞
Nov 13/2000, DOM Level 2:
the W3C issued the DOM Level 2 Recommendation. Read⮞
1999
This lists 1999 newsitems that haven’t been updated:
May 5/1999, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines:
the W3C issued the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Recommendation. Read⮞
1998
This lists 1998 newsitems that haven’t been updated:
