Improved Standards Support

Web developers have expressed some frustration with certain peculiarities in the behavior of Internet Explorer 6, especially in the areas of standards support. Beginning with Internet Explorer 7, the browser architecture has been re-engineered to address standards compatibility problems and will offer additional support for popular standards.

• CSS improvements CSS is a widely used standard for creating Web pages. Internet Explorer 7 and later versions are prioritizing compliance to CSS standards by first implementing the features that developers have said are most important to them. Microsoft has fixed some positioning and layout issues related to the way in which Internet Explorer 6 handles <div> tags.
• Transparent PNG support Internet Explorer 7 and later versions support rendering of Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format images, including the optional alpha channel transparency. PNG files use a typographical file format that can include an indication of the exact degree of transparency a picture should have through a measurement called the alpha channel. With an alpha channel, designers can use special effects that were not previously supported, such as creating Web page images that have shadows but do not obscure the background image behind them.