Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chrome breaks the Web

tonsky.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 473 posts

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#361

Post by briandear »

pas wrote: post #290
halr9000 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not protecting your interests, it's protecting Google's interests. But you can always install (or develop) another browser that might do this job better for you . > If it was protecting your interests, it would be a toggleable setting that defaults to normalized behavior. The problem with this view is that the vast majority of end users do not want, and in fact will never know about or use a new setting, and s…

Users don't use thousands of sites. If a site misbehaves and users want autofill on it, they should be able to override autocomplete=off for that site. Google could even make an extension for this to allow users to gather and share a list of sites that behave in a user unfriendly way. But of course, it was much easier to fuck up half of the Web. Public choice and mandates are great for things that require cooperation…

I have a site that deals with HIPPA protected information. I absolutely don’t want autofill, especially for sign in information. Chrome makes that impossible and just ignores the code.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#363

Post by gsnedders »

deno wrote: post #172
falcolas wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In saying that "Devs assume Chrome", I'm asserting that they do not do feature detection. However, that does not absolve Chrome of breaking backwards compatibility, workaround or not. Tossing the responsibility of dealing with their breaking changes back on the developer (with little notice) is what caused this article in the first place.

If Chrome shipped with opt-out UI option to disable janky scrolling, would it be any better? Web is not a static target. Being afraid to break things gets you a decade of Flash websites. Things that are important will be maintained, and things that aren’t… well good riddance. Personally, I think we are way past due HTML6. A sort of Vulkan-like platform for Web[1]. HTML5 should be build on top of this next-gen low lev…

> A sort of Vulkan-like platform for Web[1]

Note that this is essentially what Houdini is for CSS.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#364

Post by pier25 »

untog wrote: post #10

> Turned out, Google wasn’t concerned about your websites at all. It was more concerned about its own product performance, Google Chrome Mobile. As a web developer, I see this attitude a lot and it annoys me immensely. Another way of phrasing it: Google is putting users first, ahead of developers. This is as it should be. "your" website exists to serve users, if you're doing a bad job at it then maybe it's an opportu…

The problem is that it wasn't only the scroll event but also the mousemove event.

I maintain a library of interactive widgets for an education product with a lot of dragging and dropping and I was hit hard by this.

I understand the reasons behind this, and I agree something thad to be done, but Google is making it difficult for devs to sympathise with the unilateral intervention. It's not the what, it's the how.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#365

Post by agentultra »

user5994461 wrote: post #345
agentultra wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall in Part 11 compliance (which is how the FDA regulates software in the US) one is required to ensure that "Passwords are not remembered by [browsers] and applications." From an ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148 perspective the language might be "shall not remember passwords" which would imply a legally binding requirement for compliance purposes. This doesn't preclude applications from using autocomplete on form entry fr…

Good thing that the NIST published updated recommendation on passwords, it supersedes all these previous regulations.

I love the NIST. That's good to hear.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#366

Post by walterstucco »

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.

> The browser is the agent of the user.

If that's true, the browser should ask me and not assume what i want it to do.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#367

Post by jarym »

jhasse wrote: post #341
jarym wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on 'lean'. But say I'm building a web-app that accesses medical records and I don't want sensitive fields being auto-completed by a browser. Forcing autocomplete in this instance does a dis-service to both users and developers.

Why not? The user knows that the browser remembers field inputs, he wouldnt expect it to be different for your website. So if he really wanted the browser not to remember anything he typed in, he would use private mode or clear his recent history afterwards. Because then there's the teacher who has to put in medical data for a whole class where everyone got the flu. The teacher is happy the browser does it job like a…

'Why not?' you ask? Let's look at HIPAA for starters: https://www.quora.com/Do-current-HIPAA-rules-require-publicl...

"In summary, HIPAA does not specifically limit the use of drop down menus or auto-complete, but if patient information was exposed to the public through these features your business would have failed to control access to the protected health information."

So now there's a risk that if a user of a medical information system uses a shared computer (say one at home but that friends and family occasionally use) you can't be sure to have protected control. It's all very well saying 'users should use private browsing mode' - you try enforcing that consistently when you have hundreds of users.

Ultimately, you end up having to restrict access which is why I felt it does a dis-service to users.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#368

Post by walterstucco »

halr9000 wrote: post #249
ysavir wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, the browser is the agent of those advertising to the user. It's not protecting your interests, it's protecting Google's interests. If it was protecting your interests, it would be a toggleable setting that defaults to normalized behavior.

> It's not protecting your interests, it's protecting Google's interests. But you can always install (or develop) another browser that might do this job better for you . > If it was protecting your interests, it would be a toggleable setting that defaults to normalized behavior. The problem with this view is that the vast majority of end users do not want, and in fact will never know about or use a new setting, and s…

> The problem with this view is that the vast majority of end users do not want

I'm a user.

I want that. I'm probably not "a majority" but I fail to see how being assimilated to the majority without my consent, without even knowing it is happening, is "protecting my interests"

What would you think of a restaurant that charges you 50% of the bill as tip because "the majority of the customers does that"?

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#369

Post by walterstucco »

UncleMeat wrote: post #304
ksk wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is breaking websites good for the user?

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 "breaking websites"

because that's what I want it to do.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#370

Post by walterstucco »

013a wrote: post #359
nashashmi wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Choosing to use Chrome is also opt-in. Its the same concept. Its not ideal , but it is what it is.

developers cannot opt-in
Post reply on HN