A Universal Selector - is depicted with a *. It can be used to represent any element at all.
A CSS Reset - is a set of declarations that resets browser default styles. This is supposed to reduce inconsistencies in line heights, margins, font sizes, etc., between browsers.
Universal Selector Vs. CSS Reset
Css Resets work great and are usually preferred, but they can cause more problems than they fix when not used appropriately. This is most visible when your resetting tags that don't need to be reset.
Universal Selectors are helpful as well but run into problems when they are applying something to every element, even if the element doesn't have those attributes. This can cause alot of unnecessary work.
CSS Reset Example
html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre, a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code, del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var, b, u, i, center, dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li, fieldset, form, label, legend, table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td { margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; outline: 0; font-size: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; } body { line-height: 1; } ol, ul { list-style: none; } blockquote, q { quotes: none; } blockquote:before, blockquote:after, q:before, q:after { content: ''; content: none; } /* remember to define focus styles! */ :focus { outline: 0; } /* remember to highlight inserts somehow! */ ins { text-decoration: none; } del { text-decoration: line-through; } /* tables still need 'cellspacing="0"' in the markup */ table { border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; }