Web Browsers And Packages

Release: 2008-05-11
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The (Old) Web Browser Generations

This provided a grading system of practical support for various web content in internet useragents such as web browsers.

Generation 1 (Genesis)

Status: No longer in existance.
Content support: IETF's HTML 2.
Such as: MS Internet Explorer 1, Netscape 1.

Generation 2 (Foundation)

Status: No longer in existance.
Content support:

IETF's HTML2,
IETF's Tables,
Netscape's Frames,
Non-standard scripting,
Plugins, Cookies.

Such as: MS Internet Explorer 2 (scripting: JScript 1.0), Netscape 2 (with GIF and JPEG images; scripting: JavaScript 1.0), Opera 2.1 (with GIF and JPEG images; scripting: JavaScript 1.0).

Generation 3 (Basic)

Status: No longer in existance.
Content support:

W3C's HTML 3.2,
Netscape's Frames,
GIF89a, JPEGs,
Java 1.0 Embedded Virtual Machine,
ECMAScript edition 1 (with Netscape's JavaScript 1.1 or Microsoft's JScript 1.1),
Plugins, Cookies.

Such as: MS Internet Explorer 3 (JScript), Netscape 3 (JavaScript), Opera 3.5 (JavaScript).

Generation 4 (Dynamic)

Status: No longer in existance.
Content support:

W3C's HTML 4.0,
UTF-8,
GIF89a, JPEGs, PNGs,
Java 1.1 Embedded Virtual Machine or External Java 2 Plugin,
ECMAScript edition 2 (Netscape's JavaScript 1.3 or Microsoft's JScript 3.1 or iCab's InScript 2.4),
Plugins, Cookies,
Some Cascade Stylesheets (CSS) level 1 and a bit of CSS 2,
Similar to Document Object Model (DOM) 1 (IE type (DHTML) or Netscape type (DHTML) or Web-Standards type (DOM)).

Such as: MS Internet Explorer 4.01 (IE DHTML), Netscape Communicator 4.06 (Netscape DHTML), Opera 4 (IE DHTML and little Web-Standards DOM), Konqueror (Web-Standards DOM), iCab 2.1 (IE & Netscape DHTML and Web-Standards DOM).

Generation 5 (Extensible)

Status: Ancient.
Content support:

W3C's HTML 4.01,
WHATWG/W3C's HTML 5 'Subset',
UTF-8,
JPEGs, PNGs,
ECMAScript edition 3 (Netscape's JavaScript 1.4+ or Microsoft's JScript 5+ or iCab's InScript 3.16+),
Plugins, Cookies,
Most Cascade Stylesheets (CSS) level 1,
Some Visual and Interactive CSS level 2,
Document Object Model (DOM) level 1 HTML,
XML 1.0, XML Namespaces 1.0, Partial XML-Stylesheet Processing Instruction (PI).

Such as: Internet Explorer 5.5, 6 and 7 (Windows), Internet Explorer 5 to 5.2.3 (Mac OS/Mac OS X), Opera 4 to 7, Konqueror 3 and other KHTML 3-based, Safari 1+ and other WebKit based and iCab 3.

Generation 6 (Web Standards)

Status: Old.
Content support:

Supporting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0+ (WCAG) Priority 2+,
W3C's HTML 4.01,
WHATWG/W3C's HTML 5 'Subset',
UTF-8+,
JPEGs, PNGs,
ECMAScript edition 3+ (with Netscape's JavaScript 1.4+ or Microsoft's JScript 5.6+)
Plugins, Cookies,
Cascade Stylesheets (CSS) level 1,
Most of Visual and Interactive CSS level 2.1,
Most of Document Object Model (DOM) level 1, some DOM 2 and DOM 5 HTML,
XML 1.0 or 1.1, XML Namespaces 1.0 or 1.1, Partial XML-Stylesheet Processing Instruction (PI).

Such as: (Possibly Internet Explorer 8), Opera 8+, Konqueror 3.2 to 3.5.x and other KHTML 3.2 to 3.5.x based, Safari 2+, iCab 4+, OmniWeb 5.6+ and other WebKit 419+ based,
Mozilla Firefox, SeaMonkey, Modern Netscape (6+), Camino, Epiphany, Galeon, K-Meleon and other Gecko-based.

Generation 7 (Advanced Presentation)

Status: Current.
Content support:

Everything from Generation 6,
Some support for CSS level 3 (W3C and/or Vendor-Specific) such as Selectors and/or Namespace Module and/or Speech Module and/or opacity and/or border radiius, etc,
Specific XML-based Languages such as Native XHTML 1.0+ and/or XHTML Basic 1.0+ and/or XSLT and XPath and/or some SVG 1.1+ and/or MathML 2+ and/or XHTML Mobile Profile and/or XHTML+Voice (VoiceXML) profile and/or Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML), etc.

Such as: Opera 8+, Konqueror 3.5.x and other KHTML 3.5.x based, Safari 3+, iCab 4+, OmniWeb 5.6+ and other WebKit 522+ based,
Mozilla Firefox 1.5+, SeaMonkey, Netscape Navigator 9, Camino, Epiphany, Galeon, K-Meleon and other Gecko 1.8+ based.