Who has made the Web standards ?

History of Web Standards: The web came into existence when the US military created a network for communication in the 1960s which was known as ARPANET. ARPANET uses a packet switching method for transmitting information and it was the first network to use TCP/IP model. After two decades means in 1980, the concept of transmission of data among different nodes through linking was given by Tim Berners-Lee.

In the year 1990, Tim Berners-Lee made all the necessary arrangements to implement the first model of the web. It consists of HTTP protocols, HTML for creating web pages and a web browser to view web pages, and lastly an HTTP server. This is how the web started.

Web Standards

Web standards are defined as technologies that are used in building websites. Web Standards consist of technical documents known as specifications, which provide detailed information on how web technology should work. These documents are really helpful for engineers in making web applications in a more efficient manner for the users.

Need for Web Standards

After the creation of the web, it was accessible by people by using a computer system, at that time only a handful of systems were there to access the web but with the rise of technology the way people access the web changed completely. Now people use different types of devices like mobile phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, etc. There are even more devices like interfaces provided in vehicles for navigation and smart speakers using speech. Moreover, screen sizes are also different when accessing the web and different operating systems are also available along with a number of web browsers. All of this has made it quite different for everyone to access the same web in a different manners on different devices.

Hence it becomes a need to make certain standards while developing websites so that those websites work smoothly on all devices with different configurations. Web standards form the foundation of rules and regulations for the developers for developing websites.

Therefore in 1994, World Wide Web Consortium also known as W3C was founded by Tim Berners-Lee. W3C organization collaborated with many different IT organizations to work on making the standards/governing rules for web development.

Components of Web Standards

1. W3C recommendations for HTML, CSS, and also for different image formats to be used in websites.
2. Living Standards provided by Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), these standards consist of Document Object Model Standard, URL Standard, Encoding Standards, etc.
3. JSON standards are given by ECMA International.
4. Recommendations of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Open Standards

Tim Berners-Lee and representatives of the W3C organization had given the most precious feature of Web Standards which says that the web will always be free for use and also for the contribution by developers means it will not limit itself by patent rights or licensing. Because of this feature, everyone is independent to write code for building websites without paying anything to anyone. Because of its openness, there is no chance of censorship means a single organization cannot control it. 

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The credit for maintaining and creating new web standards goes to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which is considered the main organization. A number of standards have been defined by W3C which includes different languages that are used in making websites like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.

Any website will be considered to follow the given web if that website or web page has correct HTML and CSS. These languages also need to comply with semantic and accessibility procedures.

Features of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

1. Web for All: It is the main goal of (W3C) to make web service accessible to all people, no matter what their software or hardware configuration is, and also no matter where they live. This feature helps people worldwide to connect and communicate with each other.
2. Web on Everything: This feature ensures that each and every device can easily access the web because people are using a large variety of devices and interfaces like mobiles, tablets, smart assistants, etc.
3. Web Of Easy Interaction: Websites should be easy to load and must be interactive so that users don’t feel bored. It should be built by keeping in mind the interest of users.
4. Web of Trust: The web should be secure and must win the trust of its users so guidelines are made to use various security measures like SSL certificates for websites, HTTPS protocol which is more secure than HTTP, and many other measures which reduce the risk of attacks on these websites.