Difference between HTML and HTML5
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Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the primary language for developing web pages. HTML5 is a new version of HTML with new functionalities with markup language with Internet technologies. HTML does not have support for video and audio but, HTML5 supports both video and audio.
What is HTML?
HTML stands for the Hypertext Markup Language. Thus HTML uses a text-based format to provide structure and style to the web page. As it is a markup language, it uses tags to define a structure and style. Hypertext means that HTML can contain text that, when clicked, can redirect you to a new page. For example, whenever you click on any link on the web page, that link redirects you to the new web page. That functionality is known as Hypertext.
Thus HTML is used to make web pages and web applications by providing the structure and styling with the help of tags.
What is HTML5?
HTML5 is an advanced version of HTML. It contains all the features of HTML along with new tags like <video>, <audio>, and <canvas>. There are also tags for including semantics, and these tags are <article>, <header>, <footer> etc. HTML5 improves the HTML to support the latest multimedia and new features, including graphics, music, etc.
Difference between HTML and HTML5
HTML is the markup language used for building web pages. HTML5 is the fifth version of HTML. In HTML5, many of the older elements present in the HTML were modified, or new elements having better functionality were added.
Let us now briefly discuss the differences between HTML and HTML5 according to various aspects:
| Parameter | HTML | HTML5 |
|---|---|---|
| Memory Storage | Cookies are used for the storage of temporary data. | HTML5 uses the database connected with the current webpage to store the temporary data. |
| Browser Compatibility | It runs smoothly on all old browsers. Eg: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefoxetc. | It runs smoothly on all new browsers. Eg: Google Chrome version 61 and up, Mozilla Firefox version 4 to 63 etc. |
| Mobile Friendliness | It is not mobile friendly. | It is mobile friendly |
| Multimedia Support | External plugins like Adobe flash reader are required to use audio, video etc. | Audio and video can easily be used by using tags like <audio>, <video>. |
| JavaScript Support | JavaScript is not allowed to run on the browser directly. | Allows JavaScript to run on the browser directly by using JS Web worker API. |
| Getting location of user using browser | Cannot get the true location of the user by using a web browser. | Can easily get the location of a user using a browser with the help of JS GeoLocation API. |
| Complicated Syntaxes | Syntaxes for doc type declaration or the character encoding is too long and complicated. Eg: To set character encoding in HTML, the syntax is: <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8″> | Syntaxes are short and simple. Eg: To set character encoding in HTML, the syntax is: <meta charset=UTF-8″> |
| Semantics and Sub structure defining tags | Do not contain any tag that can define the semantics (the difference between the meaning of the text or the relationship between different types of text. For eg: Which text is more important than other) of the text or can divide the structure of the document into sub parts. | Contains the tags like < article >, < section > etc. that defines semantics of the text. Also there are tags like < header >, < footer >, < nav > etc. that define the substructure of the document. |
HTML5 has undergone several changes, with modifications and removals of various HTML elements. A comparison between the older versions and HTML5 is outlined below:
| Element | In HTML5 |
|---|---|
| <applet> | Changed to <object> |
| <acronym> | Changed to <abbr> |
| <dir> | Changed to <ul> |
| <frameset> | Removed |
| <frame> | Removed |
| <noframes> | Removed |
| <strike> | No new tag. CSS is used for this |
| <big> | No new tag. CSS is used for this |
| <basefont> | No new tag. CSS is used for this |
| <font> | No new tag. CSS is used for this |
| <center> | No new tag. CSS is used for this |
| <tt> | No new tag. CSS is used for this |
HTML5 introduces several new elements, enhancing the language with features such as nav, audio, figcaption, progress, command, time, datalist, video, figure, meter, data, section, time, aside, canvas, summary, rp, rt, details, wbr, header, footer, keygen, embed, article, hgroup, bdi, mark, output, source, track, section, ruby, and more.
Advantages and Disadvantages of HTML
Advantages
- Easy and simple to use.
- Widely supported by almost all web browsers.
- Standard language for making the structure of the web pages.
- Code is very lightweight, thus providing better speed online.
- Free to use. And it can be run on browsers only, so there is no need to buy any external software.
Disadvantages
- Only capable of making static web pages that do not contain any functionality or dynamic content.
- Due to complex and long syntaxes, there are multiple lines of code required even to make any web component.
- There is no feature of syntax error detection. Thus if any error is made while coding, it can only be detected after seeing the output. This could be very harmful if the code is long and complicated.
- The security features of HTML are almost none or very limited.
- The HTML code is tough to understand and manage.
Advantages and Disadvantages of HTML5
Advantages
- There are many attributes present in HTML5 that were not present in HTML. E.g., data-, offline, onabort, onblur, etc.
- It provides support for audio, video, and other multimedia content by using tags like <audio>,<video>,<canvas> etc.
- There are many page layout options available in HTML5. In HTML, you can only find page layout tags like div, span, etc. But in HTML5, there are many more tag options available like header, footer, article, section, etc.
- HTML5 supports Search Engine Optimisation(SEO). Search engine optimization helps the websites to know about the popularity of their content and also provides insights on how to improve the content to increase the traffic on the websites.
- HTML5 provides more flexible storage options. HTML uses the concept of cookies to store temporary data, but HTML5 is capable of using a user-side database like SQL. It also allows the user to view previously visited page data in offline mode.
- HTML5 eliminates the need to write multiple codes for multiple platforms. The code written in HTML5 supports mobile or tablet layouts. Thus it provides multi-platform compatibility.
Disadvantages
- Can only be run on modern browsers. Not compatible with older versions of various browsers, e.g., Google Chrome version less than 60, Mozilla version 2 and 3.6, etc.
- There is no standard video format available. For example, the H.264 video format is supported by all web browsers but not by Firefox; similarly, the Ogg Theory video format is supported by all web browsers but not by Explorer.
- The multi-platform support provided by HTML5 sometimes leads to more complex code. Also, it becomes necessary to run all web applications in all formats to check the credibility of the code.
- HTML5 is still in the development phase; therefore, it might appear that a few features that worked before are not working now. Thus developers need to stay updated while using HTML5.
Conclusion
- HTML is a standard language for writing web pages.
- HTML5 is a better version of HTML by overcoming some disadvantages of HTML like multimedia incompatibility or multi-platform incompatibility.
- HTML5 is a language of the modern browser, but in order to become proficient in using HTML5, one needs to know the basics.
- The first is HTML. Thus a person aspiring to become a Web developer is advised to start by learning HTML and then making the transition to HTML5.