I was pleased to read a post over on the official Internet Explorer (IE) Blog detailing how the major browser devlopers are beginning to work together to develop some common standards.

The post covers security issues including phishing along with Microsoft’s proposed solution. I believe that this kind of co-operation will be received well by all and should be built upon to bring about the introduction of further standards.

As any web developer will tell you, developing feature rich websites which are cross-browser compatible is not the easiest of tasks. This is due to different methods which are used by each browser resulting in browser quirks. Personally, I would like to see a common rendering engine used by each browser with unique features and user interface built on top of that. This is a long way off, but I believe it would reduce repetition of work, improve user experiences and help develop standards while still allowing each browser to have it’s own identity.

This is a step in the right direction in my book, hopefully the developers will keep working together in future.