SVG really comes into its own on the Web. The small compact file structure (when compressed and stripped of unneeded items) makes for quick downloads, yet its vector nature results in excellent rendering at any scale. But this is only the beginning. SVG plays nicely with other web technologies: SVG files can be embedded into web pages, they can contain hypertext links, and they can be can be scripted and animated. And now with HTML5, SVG will be everywhere.

The SVG standard is directed toward a complete description of two-dimensional graphics, including animation in an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) format. XML is an open standard for describing a document in a way that can be easily extended and is resistant to future changes in the document specification. A drawing saved in one version of SVG by one version of a drawing program should be viewable, to the full extent possible, by any previous or future version of any drawing program that adheres to the SVG standard. If a program doesn't support something in the SVG standard, it should just skip over any part of a drawing that uses it, rendering the rest correctly.

SVG files are small, and drawings described by the standard adapt well to different presentation methods. This has led to great interest in the standard. Support is included in many web browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer from version 9), or is available through plug-ins (e.g., Adobe, Ssrc SVG, svgweb and Google). Over a dozen companies including Apple (iPhone), Blackberry, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson produce mobile phones that utilize a subset of the full SVG standard (SVG Tiny) that has been tailored for devices with limited resources.