Is anyone else concerned that this means IT can choose to hold back the version of Chrome in their organizations? Auto-updating Chrome has been low key one of the best solutions to the pain of backwards compatibility with older browsers. In the past we not only had to worry about compatibility between browsers, we had to worry about compatibility between browser versions. Further, auto-updating Chrome as dramatically reduced the time from new web feature implementation to widespread deployment and thus usability. I take it that turning off auto-updating will not be widespread, but I'd rather not risk it
Chrome browser for businesses
61–70 of 282 posts
Re: Chrome browser for businesses
#62One notable thing about the dominance of Chrome (and the decline of Firefox) is that WebKit is now a de facto standard. The desktop and mobile versions of Chrome and Safari are based on it, and according to Microsoft, "any Edge-WebKit differences are bugs that we’re interested in fixing." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Edge ). That covers every major desktop and smartphone browser except Firefox. At some p…
Firefox already does that, started long ago. They even added support for -webkit prefixes for the same reasons.
As I can tell you from experience, they don't work all of the time, and it is a source of frustration for front-end developers I know who need to work with it.
Re: Chrome browser for businesses
#63Is this about replacing one monopoly with another? It is slowly starting too look like in the early 00's, most developers are starting to support only chrome, with no testing in Firefox or latest IE. On Android it is even worse, no one is testing with Firefox Mobile (Fennec) - this is WinXP-IE6 all over again.
Yet somehow many thought that the cynic ones of us where wrong and Google would be different.
Our opinions are based on life experience, watching the same cycles unfold time and time again.
The next one will be the demise of open source ideals after everyone has migrated away from GPL for everything but the Linux kernel.
I will give it around 10 years for it to happen.
Re: Chrome browser for businesses
#64One notable thing about the dominance of Chrome (and the decline of Firefox) is that WebKit is now a de facto standard. The desktop and mobile versions of Chrome and Safari are based on it, and according to Microsoft, "any Edge-WebKit differences are bugs that we’re interested in fixing." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Edge ). That covers every major desktop and smartphone browser except Firefox. At some p…
Yes, in abstract Webkit only support sounds nice.
In reality, each mobile device and consumer computer has a different Webkit version.
Re: Chrome browser for businesses
#65Are the benefits of these things to enterprise customers just the protection against dumb employees?
Protection and control.
Re: Chrome browser for businesses
#66Is this about replacing one monopoly with another? It is slowly starting too look like in the early 00's, most developers are starting to support only chrome, with no testing in Firefox or latest IE. On Android it is even worse, no one is testing with Firefox Mobile (Fennec) - this is WinXP-IE6 all over again.
I completely agree. It's re-enforced with Chrome's supplied dev tools which are really, really nice (I always found them far better than Firefox's built-in or Firebug). It's going to be harder to unseat Chrome. IE 6 wasn't so difficult due to an increase in competition who offered features that IE wasn't even working on (standards, tabs, etc). How would you even unseat Chrome?
Firefox dev tools are sometimes painful to use and lacks some important features which Chrome's has.
Some examples:
- debugging with source maps: it doesn't work properly (I can set breakpoints and debug variables content on typescript files in Chrome, but not in FF)
- JS exceptions: clicking on the filename inside the stack opens a new window with the source of the JS file, not the debugger (ugh)
- doesn't support typescript highlighting
Re: Chrome browser for businesses
#67Is anyone else concerned that this means IT can choose to hold back the version of Chrome in their organizations? Auto-updating Chrome has been low key one of the best solutions to the pain of backwards compatibility with older browsers. In the past we not only had to worry about compatibility between browsers, we had to worry about compatibility between browser versions. Further, auto-updating Chrome as dramatically…
For many organisations there is a real risk that a browser update will unexpectedly break a key internal application, which could have a catastrophic impact on operations.
The vast majority of large companies will control and test key software updates, balancing the various risks (security patches, obsolescence, operational incidents..).
Not allowing auto-updating to be controlled basically means that the software is not intended to be deployed in enterprises.
Re: Chrome browser for businesses
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree. It's re-enforced with Chrome's supplied dev tools which are really, really nice (I always found them far better than Firefox's built-in or Firebug). It's going to be harder to unseat Chrome. IE 6 wasn't so difficult due to an increase in competition who offered features that IE wasn't even working on (standards, tabs, etc). How would you even unseat Chrome?
Firefox dev tools are sometimes painful to use and lacks some important features which Chrome's has. Some examples: - debugging with source maps: it doesn't work properly (I can set breakpoints and debug variables content on typescript files in Chrome, but not in FF) - JS exceptions: clicking on the filename inside the stack opens a new window with the source of the JS file, not the debugger (ugh) - doesn't support t…
On the other hand, the network tab in the dev tools actually knows how to parse incoming JSON, unlike Chrome which only renders a string.
Re: Chrome browser for businesses
#69One notable thing about the dominance of Chrome (and the decline of Firefox) is that WebKit is now a de facto standard. The desktop and mobile versions of Chrome and Safari are based on it, and according to Microsoft, "any Edge-WebKit differences are bugs that we’re interested in fixing." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Edge ). That covers every major desktop and smartphone browser except Firefox. At some p…
Except Google and the Chrome team have forked WebKit as Blink, and are running quite a different development path.
There's now Blink, WebKit, Gecko, Trident in mainstream and a few others lurking.
Re: Chrome browser for businesses
#70One notable thing about the dominance of Chrome (and the decline of Firefox) is that WebKit is now a de facto standard. The desktop and mobile versions of Chrome and Safari are based on it, and according to Microsoft, "any Edge-WebKit differences are bugs that we’re interested in fixing." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Edge ). That covers every major desktop and smartphone browser except Firefox. At some p…
It was true a few years ago, but Chrome no longer uses WebKit, they forked it to their own Blink engine, so now there are differences between them and you have to write stylesheets for both (example: -apple-system font vs BlinkMacSystemFont).
Although some code is still being ported between them (e.g. Safari recently "Enabled support for a modern CSS parser, ported from Blink, that improves performance, specification compliance, and compatibility with other browsers, while also adding support for scientific notation in all CSS numbers" https://webkit.org/blog/7120/release-notes-for-safari-techno...).