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When will web browsers be complete?

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11–20 of 213 posts

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#12
I think the disruptive innovation for the mono-culture in browser development will be web platforms that enable meaningful and broadly accessible end-user programming. The established players have no incentive to pursue this objective (since it undermines central ownership of data/experience) but, if executed well, could be an extremely valuable proposition for users. Google's current trajectory won't take us there but maybe others can.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#13
Let's talk about Web Page for a minute, or Web Page with some interactivity and animations.

Are there any Web Page, render in Web Browser, both the page itself, and the standard itself, that gives the smoothness of say opening a PDF, or even better, a Native App. Does the Apple Store Web Page for selling iPhone felt as smooth as their Apple Store App on your iOS?

Jank ( micro- pause ) are still everywhere. Both the Browser and the WebPage itself. And this isn't Web App, just simple Web Pages.

I say web browsers ( and the Web Standards ) is far from complete.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#17
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - CSS is worked on by CSSWG The CSS WG is a W3C WG, and they're very much published as W3C specifications.

I just don't get the impression OP is even aware there are groups in existence working on web standards apart from W3C.

Generally I think seeing W3C as "a group" is not a great (but common) perspective. While it provides some process framework, which certainly impacts how things happen, and not just in a good way, in the end it comes down to the working groups doing the actual work, and the people and companies active there.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#18
The main problem with the current state of web browsers is that it's now impossible for a third party to develop a competing browser from scratch (or nearly from scratch). The already existing set is unimaginably huge, and it's a moving targets as browsers (especially Chrome) is throwing more and more features into it.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#19
We will reach feature-parity with our local Operating Systems.

The author states this in a way that makes it sound like it's possible, but that betrays an assumption that operating systems aren't moving forwards and innovating as well. The web will always lag behind the new features that come to OSs, and therefore browsers will always need to be changing in order to give web users access to those features.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#20

> there is not much more distance to cover [relative to native toolkits] As I see it, the web as originally conceived was "ready" around 2003, and then again around 2009 when CSS media queries became mainstream to adapt to mobile usage. For me, the excessive push for browser APIs as a desktop replacement since then, and the proliferation of frameworks is a generational thing, driven not by technology but by big data,…

The alternative is an internet completely locked down in native apps in proprietary and unaccountable app stores. I'll take a bloated web browser over a corporate monoculture any day.
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