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Chrome is Not the Standard

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Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#401

Post by rimliu »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #312

> Many times, when this latter tack happens, developers grouse about the other browser makers who are “holding the web back.” But there is a fundamental problem in this way of looking at things: Chrome isn’t the standard. The fact that Chrome proposes something, and even the fact that a bunch of developers like it, does not a standard make. WHATWG taking over the "standard" certainly muddies the waters. It's theoreti…

What WHATWG says does not matter either. The only thing that matters is what is implemented in browsers.

Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#402

Post by dao- »

headmelted wrote: post #393
dao- wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NaCl was as bad as ActiveX but less successful, thank God.

Was it though? I wasn't a fan of NaCl, and WebAssembly (for example) is a much better fit for an open web, but it was at least platform agnostic (if support was provided by the vendor) and ran in a reasonably strict sandbox. ActiveX was neither of these things. All that said, having any one browser be the standard is as terrible for the open web now as it was in IE's heyday. Just because Chrome is less awful doesn't…

"If support was provided by the vendor" is a big if... Google was well aware of this inherent flaw but pushed NaCl regardless while at the same time promising for years that PNaCl would eventually solve all problems. PNaCl never really materialized, I think, and it feels like Google was throwing a smokescreen there to boost support and mindshare for NaCl.

Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#403

Post by rimliu »

rdiddly wrote: post #239
4684499 wrote: post #174

There was a competition, Chrome won, I don't like the result, but it's the fact. I won't tell people to save the web by suggesting using something less competitive, that would reduce the I-wanna-save-the-web group's productivity, making their choices/opinions less competitive, which probably leads them to extinction. Web devs are just a small amount of browser users, general users couldn't care less about the standar…

Like it's over? You forget that one of the things that happens a lot before losing, is winning. Internet Explorer won too.

The problem was not IE winning, the problem was it sleeping on the laurels after that. So when demands for what could be done on the web, for standards compliance increased IE become troublesome. If there is a winning browser but it is still constantly developed and improved that would be less of a problem (though still not desirable).

Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#404

Post by ksec »

Safari is the new IE. Chrome is the new IE. And then all these comment claiming IE6 was actually very good?

May be I am old. Old, at least by Silicon Valley standard. After all Webkit is the new IE was coined by someone who hasn't started programming in the IE 6 era and thought IE era meant IE7 onwards.

Do any of you remember what those days were? IE? Active X? Different code for different Browser? DHTML? That was before even the word Ajax was coined. Before we had Jquery?

The problem we had with IE6, for me at least wasn't really about its monopoly. It was about so many low hanging fruit that they could have improve, but decided not to, and it was at the start of the first Internet boom, we could have had a future much brighter, but Microsoft was using all sort of propriety tech and not working with standards, leading to Netscape and Mozilla having to engineering its "Quirk" mode. Developing for IE was simple enough, Developing for Netscape and IE was hell.

That was long time ago.

I guess Microsoft thought IE was good enough. Good for simple Documents with tables and little animation sprinkled on top. Given their very low quality of standards at the time, may be they really thought the Web was good enough.

Fast forward to today, I guess Apple thought the web, as basic web pages is good enough. At least we cant do better without breaking lots of compatibility. But then there are those who saw Internet as an App Platform, much like Java, write once run anywhere. And they see Apple as something that is stopping them to achieve that goal, much like how IE was stopping the Internet from becoming better.

It really is two different Goal, Web Pages or Web Apps. Some people thinks web pages is even done yet, CSS Grid is hardly the answer we were all looking for. Some think forget about Web pages, it is good for what it is, Web Apps. It is all we need.

For me? I just wanted simple and beautiful Web Pages, Stripe and Apple's Website is two example I like. So i do ignore people who think it is their right for Webassembly, WhateverDB, ServerWorker, PWA or what ever that NEEDS to be included in every Browser.

May be the younger ones thinks I am just old fart stopping them from reaching their goal. Just like I was thinking IE was stopping the Web becomes the Web. I guess, is just a matter of prospective, old vs the New, the age old question.

Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#405

Post by devit »

Someone wrote: post #328
connorelsea wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with a low market share Apple could still theoretically be engaging in practices that are anti-consumer, such as disallowing the use of other browser engines. Though, afaik, Apple does not stoop to the levels of Amazon, who removed the Twitch app from Roku platform for absolutely no reason other than to line their pockets with more cash.

Anti-trust is there for cases where society thinks 1) the free market doesn’t work because it is too hard for competition to enter an existing market or for existing competition to dethrone a market leader. _and_ 2) the big player(s) take (too much) advantage of their position by engaging in ‘anti-consumer’ practices. Given the existence of Android, Apple isn’t in position 1. So, do you think (2) alone is sufficient…

Android doesn't run iOS apps.

Apple has a monopoly on OSes that run iOS apps, OSes that run on iPhones, phones that run iOS and on App Stores that can install iOS apps.

They abuse all of them (e.g. the Webkit-only issue for iOS, monopoly pricing on iPhones, censorship in App Store).

Conversely e.g. Google has none of these monopolies except for the monopoly in running perfectly apps that require Google Play Services.

Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#406

Post by devit »

0x0 wrote: post #309
riquito wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple has legitimate technical reasons for not allowing other browser engines (well specifically the JS part). Intent matters. Oh please... source?

Efficient javascript needs to be JIT'ed, but that means your app needs to be granted API access to map writeable memory as executable, which is a security risk they are not willing to grant third party developers. So a third party browser/js engine will likely be quite slow. I guess this would give users of a bad impression of iOS perfomance as a whole then, if other browser engines were allowed and became popular?

It's not a security risk (assuming a properly engineered OS).

Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#407

Post by alwillis »

smarx007 wrote: post #395
alwillis wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given this it's really a shame that Apple does not allow other browser engines on iOS. Would be a prime opportunity for competition to raise the overall quality level. WebKit is a core part of iOS; lots of APIs use it for lots of things. You just can't swap it out for something else without breaking things. Lets not forget the security and power usage issues as well; the last thing iPhone users would want is a render…

Didn't MS also say that IE is a core part of Windows?

Microsoft lied and said that Windows wouldn’t work without IE, to justify bundling it with Windows after they signed a decent decree with the US government forbidding them from using their natural monopoly in operating systems as leverage in other markets.

WebKit is used by several Apple apps—Mail, iTunes, App Store, Calendar, etc—and thousands of 3rd party apps.

Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#408

Post by 0x0 »

devit wrote: post #406
0x0 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Efficient javascript needs to be JIT'ed, but that means your app needs to be granted API access to map writeable memory as executable, which is a security risk they are not willing to grant third party developers. So a third party browser/js engine will likely be quite slow. I guess this would give users of a bad impression of iOS perfomance as a whole then, if other browser engines were allowed and became popular?

It's not a security risk (assuming a properly engineered OS).

All OSes have bugs, and the XNU kernel certainly has had its share, so removing the ability to execute arbitrary code definitively makes exploitation of buffer overflows etc in 3rd party apps much harder.

Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#409

Post by thesmok »

userbinator wrote: post #334
asplake wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, but to have this happen even for silent videos seems particularly annoying

From what I know, even "silent" videos can have an audio stream, which just happens to have all its samples decode to 0 (or nearly 0.)

Videos embedded into a webpage have a "muted" boolean attribute, so the nice behavior would be to not pause the music player when muted video starts playing.

Re: Chrome is Not the Standard

#410

Post by jhasse »

devit wrote: post #405
Someone wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-trust is there for cases where society thinks 1) the free market doesn’t work because it is too hard for competition to enter an existing market or for existing competition to dethrone a market leader. _and_ 2) the big player(s) take (too much) advantage of their position by engaging in ‘anti-consumer’ practices. Given the existence of Android, Apple isn’t in position 1. So, do you think (2) alone is sufficient…

Android doesn't run iOS apps. Apple has a monopoly on OSes that run iOS apps, OSes that run on iPhones, phones that run iOS and on App Stores that can install iOS apps. They abuse all of them (e.g. the Webkit-only issue for iOS, monopoly pricing on iPhones, censorship in App Store). Conversely e.g. Google has none of these monopolies except for the monopoly in running perfectly apps that require Google Play Services.

> Apple has a monopoly on OSes that run iOS apps, OSes that run on iPhones, phones that run iOS and on App Stores that can install iOS apps.

You could also say that Samsung has a monopoly of smartphones with "SAMSUNG" printed on them.

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