I enabled portals in Canary and tested out the demo. For some reason after the portal has activated, I can no longer go back to the previous page. So much for "take over the web and become the standard way in which websites transition between links". I wonder how much this will confuse the average user. I hope that this is still due to it being experimental.
Google launches new “portal” HTML element
61–70 of 265 posts
Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element
#62I don't understand why I should have any desire for this.
Depending on how it interacts with SRI, there is one interesting use case that could be supported. Imagine you had a data-uri / bookmarklet which loaded a of a web app, using the ideas discussed here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17776456
If the SRI hash on the data-uri could restrict the content of the portal to a trusted HTML document (containing SRI hashes for the scripts it referenced), then navigating "into" the portal would allow the browser to display the URL of the origin site, and run JavaScript in that context, with the TLS indicator visible.
This would allow us to pin specific versions of web apps (if they were structured this way), and those apps could be subject to independent audit. Specifically, it would then be impossible for a compromised host to silently "upgrade" you to a new malicious version of the web app (or even downgrade you to an earlier version).
Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element
#63I hope ad blockers can universally block this tag. This seems like an attempt for them to make ads even more annoying.
Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element
#64Also just realized, as much as people like to push all the snark about Microsoft regarding Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, that's exactly what Google is doing right now.
With them dominating browser share, they can now push tags like this that only make ads more annoying.
Geez we so badly need a more balanced browser landscape.
Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> as they see fit They're doing this in the open through the W3C WICG process [1]. They're not doing this as they see fit. > for their own purposes. Open standards are available for anyone to use and benefit from. That they may have had a use case in mind when defining the spec does not invalidate it; rather, it reinforces it and shows its value. 1: https://wicg.github.io/portals/
> They're doing this in the open through the W3C WICG process [1]. They're not doing this as they see fit. I really don't see a significant difference. They can pretty much propose whatever they see fit through WICG and implement it in Chrome as they see fit. By the way, this isn't a standard by any reasonable definition of the word.
That's how modern web standards are done. If people like it, other browsers will adopt it and then the standard will too. If people don't, they won't. But every browser runs nonstandard features as part of experiments to implement new things.
One way of looking at it is that the standardization process is "propose and implement whatever you want, but it doesn't become a standard until another browser implements it and consensus is achieved".
This is a direct response to the problems of the W3Cs old way of defining large, pie in the sky, standards without any implementation, and then only much later realizing that they were bad.
Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element
#66I don’t like how Google now gets to ‘launch new HTML elements’ as they see fit for their own purposes.
embrace and extend...
Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element
#67> portals can be pre-loaded while the user scrolls through a page Let's be real here. This can already be done though "prefetch" and "preload" [0]. This is just Google introducing more pointless tech that will make webpages clunkier for no good reason. Honestly, I can't think of a single purpose this serves that isn't already fulfilled by existing web tech. [0]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49491193/how-can-i-…
It's not pointless at all. It makes the Web platform more complicated to implement, which, as the company that owns the leading browser, is in Google's interest. The more complicated the platform becomes, the harder and more expensive it will be for any potential competitors to ship a product that can challenge Chrome.
Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element
#68> portals can be pre-loaded while the user scrolls through a page Let's be real here. This can already be done though "prefetch" and "preload" [0]. This is just Google introducing more pointless tech that will make webpages clunkier for no good reason. Honestly, I can't think of a single purpose this serves that isn't already fulfilled by existing web tech. [0]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49491193/how-can-i-…
The spec goes into detail of why existing tech (iframes) aren't enough:
https://github.com/WICG/portals/blob/master/explainer.md#faq...
https://github.com/WICG/portals/blob/master/explainer.md#alt...
Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They're doing this in the open through the W3C WICG process [1]. They're not doing this as they see fit. I really don't see a significant difference. They can pretty much propose whatever they see fit through WICG and implement it in Chrome as they see fit. By the way, this isn't a standard by any reasonable definition of the word.
That's how modern web standards are done. If people like it, other browsers will adopt it and then the standard will too. If people don't, they won't. But every browser runs nonstandard features as part of experiments to implement new things. One way of looking at it is that the standardization process is "propose and implement whatever you want, but it doesn't become a standard until another browser implements it an…
No, given chrome's market share other browsers are forced to implement it or people will consider those browsers broken.
Google are now where microsoft were when they launched IE6, adding features as they see pleased to support their own products and revenue.
Back then the web population was savvy and not so reliant on microsoft that they could jump to firebird/firefox/opera when things got really bad.
The modern web users don't have that option because google are far more dominant now than microsoft ever was.
Back then people would joke about their grandma being "stuck" on IE6, but that's the level of technical aptutide of the whole web now. Just ordinary people wanting to get on with their own business.
Back in '02 chances are you'd be re-install XP all the time and during one of those installs a technician could install firefox (or later chrome) and you'd be set up. That doesn't happen now, OSes "just work" and people aren't changing their browser.
Re: Google launches new “portal” HTML element
#70Also just realized, as much as people like to push all the snark about Microsoft regarding Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, that's exactly what Google is doing right now. With them dominating browser share, they can now push tags like this that only make ads more annoying. Geez we so badly need a more balanced browser landscape.
The good thing is that they are already starting, so that the red flags are risen early.