One indicator is that most WWW authors now target their documents for the default settings of Netscape and use Netscape's extended HTML tag set. The current trend in Web browser development is to create larger, more powerful browsers with more native helper programs. Web browsers continue to be the convergence point of many Internet technologies. For example, future browsers will include more sophisticated e-mail functionality and Usenet News readers. There is also much discussion among WWW developers about including richer document formats within the HTML code which would provide enhanced character-formatting information.
Future browsers are also likely to be able to translate increasingly diverse types of protocols.
Future browsers must have improved data encryption capabilities to decrease on-line fraud and, thereby, create a more secure environment for transmitting digicash . In March 1995, the Internet draft for HTML version 3.0 was released. Although they are intended to be backwards-compatible with previous versions, at present many browsers do not fully support the older HTML specifications 2.0, 1.0 and 0.9. This means there are many variant forms of HTML which browsers may or may not recognize. Add to this the unilateral initiative of browser developers, such as Netscape Corp., to create unique sets of HTML tag extensions which only their browsers can understand, and the atmosphere for producing a standard becomes even less stable.