Hannibal is one of the regular contributors over at ars technica. Not only is he very knowledgeable on technical issues, but he is an exceptionally good writer; his articles are always a great place to learn a lot about something you're new to.

He has been writing on ars about his concerns about IE 5.5's lack of W3C standards compliance. I share his concerns, and although IE is a good browser, from where I sit it sure looks like MS are up to their old tricks. He gave a pointer to a really good essay about the platform war coming to the web.

I sent the essay to a friend, and he wrote back that it was "very depressing". I agree that the prospect of a de facto, IE-only web is not a happy thought. However, a slashdot reader pointed out the other day that there is hope, from a surprising source. When AOL 6.0 is released, which browser will it use? That's right... the one they purchased not too long ago. ;-) A standards-compliant Mozilla/Netscape running on millions of AOL users' machines will be a powerful force in ensuring that companies can't afford to make their web sites IE-only.

On a personal level, I'm renewing my commitment to making my own web pages standards-compliant (viewable with any compliant browser) and using a compliant browser myself.

Other resources:

Web standards

Any browser campaign