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Chrome breaks the Web

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Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#331

Post by jhasse »

artursapek wrote: post #91
KeitIG wrote: post #9

> they made all top-level event listeners passive by default. They call it “an intervention”. This is my very problem with Chrome/Chromium right now. The Chrome team does assumption on how things "should" be (in a highly subjective way) and breaks the web. Another example: they decided to ignore the value of `autocomplete` attributes on ` ` tags [1], because: > The tricky part here is that somewhere along the journey…

I had a form on the website I administer that closes a user's account permanently. It requires them to input their password and click a button (with a confirmation dialog). Chrome was seeing that password input and auto-filling it, making it very easy for a user to accidentally close their account. It did the same thing for a "change username" form, which also had a password field to confirm the change. Chrome though…

Just put a captcha on the user deletion page: problem solved.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#332

Post by Klathmon »

gw wrote: post #323
Klathmon wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reread my first comment. I pointed out that the breakage would be limited in scope. Very very few applications were broken by this (broken being defined as having it's core functionality unusable). And you seem to be completely ignoring the fact that the upgrade "path" is one click of a button. Whether you agree with my stance on the responsibility of hosting your own internet connected server or not, it's a one clic…

Against my better judgement I did a reverse image search and found the post that you found that screenshot from [1]. The post is full of people having exactly the sort of problems you would expect from an automatic software updater, along with instructions from Jeff on how to manually update using SSH and git. These things happen. The world is messy, and whether due to technical inadequacy or run-of-the-mill software…

And I agree that we shouldn't break things lightly, but in this case that wasn't possible.

The options were let website scrolling be laggy and janky on mobile, or break a very small amount of websites. (and your point is that things may never be updated, so no amount of "giving them the ability to opt-in to these improvements would ever help)

And I stand by my thought that they made the right decision here, despite the very few easily upgraded sites that were impacted.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#333

Post by jhasse »

Spivak wrote: post #83
LoSboccacc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's a load of bollocks. if google wants a better web, he needs to work toward better standards. implementing a vendor specific api by fiat with broken detection is what fucked the web in the first place! same with apple - "now we'll ignore user-scalable=no and screw every responsive webapp out there" instead of user punishing badly behaved application, vendor are indiscriminately breaking well behaved apps whether…

Fine, I'll call out that it's good. I mean honestly you should have seen the writing on the wall with user-scalable: it inhibited the user from doing something they wanted to do, it hurt accessibility, it made websites imperceptibly inconsistent, and there isn't a good way of asking the user if they would like to disable zoom.

> and there isn't a good way of asking the user if they would like to disable zoom.

Whats wrong with "This page wants disable zooming. Allow?"?

That would fix the canvas web game usecase.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#334

Post by jhasse »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #123
dx034 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> same with apple - "now we'll ignore user-scalable=no and screw every responsive webapp out there" Maybe because 90% of responsive webapps would be better implemented as standard html websites which would improve performance and help preserving battery.

what the hell are you on about now? responsive web doesn't mean hulking javascript monsters automatically.

responsive web also doesnt mean youd need to disable zooming

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#335

Post by JoshTriplett »

alexssung wrote: post #272
JoshTriplett wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the website says to display ads, my browser will properly ignore that. If the website says to prevent the user from switching away from the tab, my browser will properly ignore hat. If the website tries to take over my system and install malware, my browser will properly ignore that. And if the browser tries to break the ability to remember passwords, my browser will properly ignore that too. Websites consist of c…

The difference between autocomplete=off and the rest of your examples is that there are actually positive UX use cases for disabling autocomplete on certain inputs (e.g. when you are an admin editing existing users)

Ad blockers have false positives as well. And there's a use case for blocking the user from closing the tab (onbeforeunload), such as prompting them to save/submit what they're working on. But for all of those, the browser is still in control and the question is what provides the most benefit for the user.

So, along the same lines, it may make sense to improve the UI for autocompleting users, or for hinting about the use of the field, to make it easier for sysadmins. But that shouldn't break the more common case of handling sites that just think they're Too Special or Too Important to allow saving login information.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#336

Post by jhasse »

gw wrote: post #206
Klathmon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way getting your flu shot can make you feel worse for a bit, but can prevent you from getting the flu which will make you feel worse for much longer, and it can help prevent others around you from getting the flu. Yes, it breaks some websites, and for those users in that moment things might be worse, but it is making the web better for significantly more people, and even the users affected aren't really "imp…

This is a really paternalistic attitude. The local presbyterian church down my street can't afford a full-time web developer to update their website every time Google decides to break it. The idea that sacrificing actual functionality in exchange for smoother scrolling makes the web "better" is a claim that makes sense only in a terrifically isolated bubble.

If your local church added a scroll listener for their small website, they deserve it.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#337

Post by danmaz74 »

baybal2 wrote: post #301
CydeWeys wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome is a program that I run on my computer. It protects my interests, not the interests of random crappy website developers doing horrible things like hijacking clipboard events. I'm all for the defaults being whatever is best for me. The browser is the agent of the user.

>Chrome is a program that I run on my computer. It protects my interests, not the interests of random crappy website developers doing horrible things like hijacking clipboard events. I'm all for the defaults being whatever is best for me. >The browser is the agent of the user. Here I support you, but do you remember that Googlers pressed assertively for hijackable right click, no opt-out history spoofing, and many ma…

> between having feature A broken on iphone or having it broken every other browser, to chose to break iPhone

In principle, I agree with you. But in reality, the iPhone market is very valuable.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#338

Post by will_hughes »

CydeWeys wrote: post #110
mcv wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the question becomes what's less bad: for website developers to break their own site, or for Chrome to break other people's site. I'm all for empowering browsers to override abusive behaviour from websites, but using bad defaults and breaking innocent websites as a result is not the solution.

Chrome is a program that I run on my computer. It protects my interests, not the interests of random crappy website developers doing horrible things like hijacking clipboard events. I'm all for the defaults being whatever is best for me. The browser is the agent of the user.

That's certainly one view of the world.

Come work tech support for a company/product with a web-based form that has a password field in it (like a CRM or other administrative system). Now explain to users why we can't stop their browser filling in their password in the field that's asking for the other user's password.

I've had situations where I'm configuring a VPN connection on the web interface for a router... then spending 10 minutes head-scratching why the hell it's giving me an invalid PSK message. Oh, because Chrome filled my password into the goddamn wrong field when it wasn't asked to.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#339

Post by jhasse »

eknkc wrote: post #13
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #4

I side with Google on this one. IMO we should be breaking JavaScript more often, especially in the name of performance, to make people use less JS and simpler JS on their websites.

Great idea. Why stop there? I say let's make "if" conditions randomly work on false values 1/1000th of the time. That will teach them.

We kinda have this already: one in every 1000th JavaScript website breaks the back button.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#340

Post by comatose »

nashashmi wrote: post #326
UncleMeat wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adblock is "breaking websites". If a website is doing something crappy, I'd prefer to not have that crappy thing happen than experience the developer's true intent.

Adblock is opt-in. If the browser misbehaves because of an extension, the browser nor website is to be blamed. Chrome cannot decide on a whim that old websites should be broken. It is not how the web moves forward. Take for example Firefox that kept breaking extensions with every update, now they have few compatible extensions.

it's a little reductio ad absurdum but what about defaulting to popup blocking? blink? marquee? It's not the same thing but maybe worth considering when defending web author's intent being ignored.
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