How do browsers read and resolve IDNs?

When a compliant browser receives input for an IDN, it converts the IDN into Punycode – the official standard that has been approved for converting IDN domains into resolvable ASCII domains. This process converts the name into an ASCII string with the prefix "xn--" that can be looked up at the TLD nameserver to determine the location of the Web site. Other encodings use different prefixes, e.g., "bq--" is used in Row-based ASCII-Compatible Encoding (RACE). Punycode ("xn--"), was accepted as the IDNA standard by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) on 14 February 2003.

Browsers that support this functionality include Internet Explorer 7, Netscape 7.1, Mozilla, 1.4, and Opera 7.