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When will web browsers be complete?

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Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#41

Post by ktpsns »

madrox wrote: post #30

When this essay started with "As someone who has used the Web since 2007" I immediately felt old, so thanks for that. As someone who has been using the Web since 1994 (and I feel like I was late to the game), I can assure the author their perspective has a lot of recency bias and this isn't something to worry about, in the general sense. Or worry about it, because it already happened a while ago. Take your pick. Loca…

As some who has used the Web since 2000, I could not second more! Chrome dominance feels a bit better then Internet Explorer dominance, because the Microsoft browser was shitty about features and documentation (anybody remembers quirks mode and the IE box model?). In the grand, the overall topics did not change (in many cases it's always been about DRMs, OS support, being the first setting/implementing the standards/proposals). Unfortunately the web browser landscape got thinner. The decline of Opera and the modern Internet Explorer (what was his name again?) is a real loss for web diversity.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#42

Post by ktpsns »

cft wrote: post #40
madrox wrote: post #30

When this essay started with "As someone who has used the Web since 2007" I immediately felt old, so thanks for that. As someone who has been using the Web since 1994 (and I feel like I was late to the game), I can assure the author their perspective has a lot of recency bias and this isn't something to worry about, in the general sense. Or worry about it, because it already happened a while ago. Take your pick. Loca…

In 20 years it will be impossible to manually browse to an unapproved "unsafe" URL in a general purpose browser.

Well, its hardly possible to manually browse an unapproved unsafe URL even today. Ever tried to browse a site with a self-signed certificate? In most browsers you have to do a lot of extra clicks to get in.

But there will always be special purpose browsers. There is "TOR browser" today, and we will have "vintage web browsers" the same way we have CLI/TLI browsers still today (thinking of elinks and lynx), or the same way as there are still FTP clients and Gopher clients.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#43

Post by lazyjones »

dmitriid wrote: post #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.

That's on purpose, of course. And everyone who suffers from it, willingly tolerates it.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#44

Post by tannhaeuser »

kristopolous wrote: post #35

The HTML/web model is still fundamentally incomplete. Links are one way, things don't flow based on concept but based on this clunky chunk called a page. We still only have one functional semantic for cross linking the clunky chunks called the hyperlink. The only way we have to find things are to use companies that have managed to visit and index all the sites, not through some search and index interface but by proce…

Regarding two-way links etc., XLink/XInclude, based on SGML and HyTime concepts, was proposed by Sun back then in 1998 or so. Thankfully, that didn't take off.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#45

Post by tannhaeuser »

jupp0r wrote: post #39
catmanjan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that we're comparing a type of software to a school of science speaks volumes

Is it? You could make the same point about engineering, literature, the arts, sociology, ... you get the idea.

I'm not getting the idea. The argument, as I understand it, was that a browser should aspire to be a standardized and relatively simple app enabling a large variety of backends to deliver content, not a never-ending "social experiment" to become overwhelmed by a single party extracting almost all value off the web, and becoming the only party with the resources to implement browsers.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#46

Post by cageface »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #29
cageface wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes the universal portability argument and fear of closed ecosystems is the carrot to put in front of a generation who experienced MS monoculture and the dangers of app stores not welcoming to GPL and other F/OSS licensing scheme. With the consequence of the web becoming a closed network itself, like AOL and CompuServe which the web was intended to replace. It's a selfish, narrow-minded motive of nerds putting their…

What benefits end users can change very quickly. Take Apple yanking HKMaps as an example. Dictatorships have always had some advantages over messy democracies.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#47

Post by cageface »

konjin wrote: post #24
cageface wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry which is which? Because right now Chrome engine has more control of the web then IE did in it's heyday when Microsoft was ruled to be a monopoly.

The current situation isn't ideal but I can still build apps and reach users without the permission of any company's review board. There's a big difference between controlling technology and controlling content.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#48

Post by cageface »

adrianN wrote: post #37
cageface wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't see a freedom or accountability difference between native apps from an appstore and webapps from a webserver.

It's very simple. One requires the good graces of an unaccountable and opaque corporate review process. The other requires nothing more than a simple webserver using open standards hosted anywhere in the world.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#49

Post by hesarenu »

pjmlp wrote: post #38
nikitaga wrote: post #22

Chrome OS being open source is not a threat to Google for several reasons: The usefulness of the browser is that it's a cross-platform platform. You can run the same web apps on Windows, Mac, Linux, even mobile devices. Turning the browser itself into an OS-level platform will just create another platform that will need to compete with all existing platforms while having nothing unique to offer – after all, the same…

With the Chrome monoculture, the Web is effectively ChromeOS nowadays, specially with the increasing amount of APIs that are Chrome only, which although other browsers refuse to implement really doesn't matter as their market share keeps decreasing towards zero.

If chrome advances it does not matter. The lowest common denominator would be safari specifically ios safari. Until it adopts we would have to code to it's standard.

Re: When will web browsers be complete?

#50

Post by pjmlp »

hesarenu wrote: post #49
pjmlp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the Chrome monoculture, the Web is effectively ChromeOS nowadays, specially with the increasing amount of APIs that are Chrome only, which although other browsers refuse to implement really doesn't matter as their market share keeps decreasing towards zero.

If chrome advances it does not matter. The lowest common denominator would be safari specifically ios safari. Until it adopts we would have to code to it's standard.

Safari only matters in 10% of the world, plenty of countries don't need to worry with customers using Safari, as no one uses any kind of Apple product and those companies have more than enough to do with their local markets.
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