Web Standards

This web site makes extensive use of modern web technologies. If you followed a link from one of our pages to this document then you may be using a browser that does not support the internet technologies used to display these pages correctly.

Although advanced technologies like CSS (Cascading StyleSheets) are used, this site is designed to be accessible to anyone who visits it with an internet device capable of understanding HTML (HyperText Markup Language), such devices include aural browsers, visual browsers and haptic browsers.

If you are using an older browser, then upgrading to a newer version may help you to fully appreciate this page, and others that use similar technologies. A table for text browsers is included because they are often used in conjunction with screen readers or braille readers.

Where to get a new browser

If you are using an older version of a browser then a more modern version of the browser you are currently using may be a good choice. Below is a small selection of some browsers which may provide you with a better user experience.

Visual Browsers

This table contains links to visual browsers that support modern web standards such as cascading style sheets. Tables for aural browsers, braille browsers and text browsers are also listed.
Browser Name Operating System Brief Description Link to Product Site
Mozilla Firefox Windows, Macintosh, AIX, Linux, OpenVMS, HPUX, FreeBSD Popular, extendable browser, many features. Excellent support for web standards such as CSS. www.mozilla.org/firefox
Opera Windows, Macintosh, Linux, QNX, OS/2, Symbian OS Versatile, fast browser that supports web standards and a full set of features. www.opera.com
Konqueror Linux, Unix Popular KDE based browser on Linux that uses KHTML rendering engine and adheres to web standards. www.konqueror.org

Aural Browsers

This table contains links to aural browsers
Browser Name Operating System Brief Description Link to Product Site
Emacspeak Linux Supports aural style sheets. http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/
WebSound Windows An extended visual WWW browser for visually impaired and blind computer users. In conjunction with a graphic tablet or a touch sensitive screen, blind users can perform an "audio-haptic exploration" of an HTML document in order to understand not only its content but also its 2D visual information (i.e the document layout). http://websound.unige.ch

Braille Browsers

This table contains links to braille browsers.
Browser Name Operating System Brief Description Link to Product Site
BrailleSurf Windows Allows a simplified reading of information available on the Web. Shows this information in a text form. This information can then be displayed on a braille bar. www.snv.jussieu.fr/inova/bs4/uk/

Text Browsers

This table contains links to text browsers.
Browser Name Operating System Brief Description Link to Product Site
Lynx Windows, Unix, VMS, DOS, OS/2 EMX Popular text-based browser. lynx.browser.org
Links Windows, Mac OSX, Unix, OS/2, BeOS Text-based browser with support for HTML tables and frames. links.sourceforge.net/

This page was inspired by the web standards project browser upgrade initiative.

The web standards project pushed for greater support of the core webstandards such as HTML, CSS, ECMAScript and the Document Object Model. The browser upgrade initiative promotes the use of browsers that support these standards so that the web can be a more accessible place.