Choose your browser carefully (2021)

As a web developer, I feel like there aren't that many chrome only APIs, but there are a lot of web standards safari doesn't support.

I wonder if our two categorisations have a large intersection.

It worked before, and I have no idea why changes need to be made that aren't universally supported; as a user there is no benefit for me that I'm aware of, and no site to my knowledge deigns to tell me otherwise

That's my point; it worked, then it didn't, and the argument is "get a different browser" (usually they say better). But the question is why did this change need to happen in the first place? Why do I need to change when it's clear that the functionality __IS__ possible with my browser.

It's not about what my browser of choice does or does not support, it's that I'm being told I need to change browsers for functionality that worked perfectly before, and I have no idea why, and instead of being told why, I'm told how awful my browser of choice is despite the benefits it has that I use it for.

I'm sure there's a reason for such changes, or at least I hope there is. But I've never seen a site that ever explained __why__ this was such an essential change that breaking compatibility was an acceptable cost; I'm just told my browser sucks, which isn't compelling.

Edit: to add, I want to stress that it's not a choice for users between browsers that support certain developer features and web features; it's a choice between which browser you spend the majority of your time in for __all__ sites at all times.

When 99.9% of the sites you use daily or weekly work without issue and just one you visit decides to make a breaking change to do the same thing that worked before, it's a very hard sell for me to accept that the browser I'm using is in the wrong. I balancey choice against the benefits my browser of choice does give, the costs of installing another browser, and how much time I really spend on the given site. I know I'm a minority in that I don't use chrome, but the entire issue is unrelated to that; it's about making breaking changes and not explaining any good reason for it, and instead just blaming the browser. If there was even some explanation, at least we could have a discussion on the value of the change.

But missing that, I just see "it worked, not it doesn't, and the functionality is the same. What is the benefit for me as a user?"

Moreover, Chrome is pushing many new APIs faster than any other vendors can implement. Due to governance changes over the past 20 years at W3C, Google and other user-hostile industry behemoths now more or less control W3C and can push many new specs to be "standardized". But not all APIs are created equal: for example Firefox dropped Battery API support because its only usecase was user tracking, so you can essentially say Battery API is Chrome-only despite being being a standard.

Also, although slightly unrelated, as a long-time Firefox user, i know that for some obscure reasons some websites don't work in Firefox, and that Google apps sites are known to act slower when presented with a Firefox user agent. I'm also old enough to remember that when Chrome came out (oh, i miss you pre-Chrome web) Google *paid* website operators to include Chrome advertisement and to make their demos only work via Chrome (once again, via user-agent filtering not via actual features of Chrome that would not be available on other browsers).

The situation is not great, it's true that for regular users Chrome is basically spyware and battery drain.

I've been waiting for Mozilla to create a better webdev console (or even copy Chrome's) and I'd move instantly.

I do use more than just Chrome (ungoogled Chromium, Edge, Firefox) and I also experience the "regular user" problem when a site is fine in Chrome but not in Firefox so I'm split between two worlds as well, and believe me - I feel your frustration.

For example, with regard to Mozilla's use of Cloudflare's DNS over HTTPS and their agreement regarding logging and privacy, he writes:

> Anyone who has worked with DNS servers knows what goes into such logs and in order for Cloudflare to keep their promise they need to: Delete the DNS requests information, but at the same time somehow still keep "anonymized" logs of the total number of requests, a list of all domain names requested, a so-called "sample" of complete DNS queries along with date and time.

I don't see how those are contradictory (except possibly for the last one, depending on what "complete" means). I don't know how DNS logs are stored but it should be entirely possible to first aggregate information and then get rid of the logs. Some other information might be harder to maintain an aggregate of after getting rid of the source data, but it's often more or less possible, and total counts of whatever should be trivial.

I'm not saying he's wrong; I'm just saying I get the feeling he might not have quite as strong a case for some of the many issues he brings up as his aggressive tone makes it sound.