Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What will a Chromium-only Web look like?

mnot.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 356 posts

Re: What will a Chromium-only Web look like?

#201

Post by remus »

nimajneb wrote: post #185
remus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They do offer standards for discussion but it will implemented and expect other vendors to follow suit. Safari definitely does not just follow suit (see https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+102,safari+15.5&compareC... for example).

Can you explain you explain what I'm looking at in your link? I only sort of understand, but I'm not confident I'm understanding it correctly. (sorry, this is probably a stupid question)

It is a website that compares which features are available in which browsers. On the linked page it's comparing the availability of web APIs in the latest versions of chrome and safari to demonstrate that safari has not implemented many of the web APIs chrome has implemented.

These APIs are one of the big areas where chrome/google have tried to expand the remit of what's possible with web apps, for example the file system api can be used by a web app to access files directly on a users machine.

Re: What will a Chromium-only Web look like?

#202

Post by ecmascript »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #43
ecmascript wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but before the tech community was all fire for Firefox. IT-guys installed it on work computers, school computers etc. We would recommend it to our families and install it for our less techy family when they would need our assistance. Firefox had the IT-sector with them. I think this does a lot for spreading the usage. Even just one IT-guy can probably give Firefox hundreds of users. Now, this is no longer the cas…

All this talk about Mozilla's political views, what about the political views of the Google leadership? Why do they get a free pass? I think blaming the politics is a just-so story. I saw everyone adopt Chrome over the years since it came out, and it had nothing to do with the leadership of the Mozilla foundation, or Google for that matter. What happened is much simpler: Chrome worked better than Firefox, most of the…

Yes I agree that is probably a big cause for it as well.

Re: What will a Chromium-only Web look like?

#203

Post by jefftk »

dblohm7 wrote: post #187
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your argument is based purely on market share then it's basically a tautology.

How can market share not be part of the discussion concerning who controls the web? You wrote: > The fact that both Brave and Vivaldi were able to disable Google's FlOC within a very short period of time Okay, they disabled some stuff. That isn’t a fundamental divergence from the upstream project. The original argument was that Google wouldn’t control the web in a Chromium monoculture because anybody can just fork it…

> A Chromium fork can only sever itself from Google’s control if it is not taking patches from upstream (ie, Google). I’m particularly thinking about the most consequential pieces: web APIs, not Google ad tech.

It's generally far easier to turn APIs off than add new things. Keeping a fork up to date with upstream while maintaining a list of Chromium platform additions that are disabled is exactly what we're talking about here, no?

Re: What will a Chromium-only Web look like?

#204

Post by gspr »

jacooper wrote: post #157
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like confusing "open-source" Android, AOSP and Play Services: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on... >While Android is open, it's more of a "look but don't touch" kind of open. You're allowed to contribute to Android and allowed to use it for little hobbies, but in nearly every area, the deck is stacked against anyone trying to use Android without Google's blessing. The second you try to…

The difference is, AOSP on its own is unusable, but Chromium Is.

It's pretty close to being unusable as an open source code base. Look at Debian's struggles with maintaining security fixes for Chromium.

Sure, the license is open, and Chromium is therefore technically open. But it's dangerously close to not being usable in any real practical meaning of "open source".

The way things are, we do indeed stand on the precipice of a Chromium-only web with—for all practical intents and purpose—no open browser. Firefox is the last thing that stands between us and that reality. It's just a shame that they seem to be wasting hundreds of millions on admin and management instead of just throwing it all at their developers.

Re: What will a Chromium-only Web look like?

#205

Post by native_samples »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #192
pilif wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reason they disallow Chromium and Mozilla is they want their users locked into their environment and they want to leverage that substantial locked-in user base to dictate terms That's one reason, but not the only reason. Security is another big one in that the WebKit process is running with privileges that Apple does not want to award to any other app process on the platform, much less a third-party one. T…

Having a smartphone battery that lasts more than an hour is also a pretty good reason. It’s like the skepticism over the Steve Jobs “Flash” memo… why do nerds have such a hard time accepting that Apple might actually be sincere about wanting to make a decent product?

It's because there's nothing magical about HTML that makes it more battery efficient than Flash was. Quite the opposite really - Flash is a compact binary format designed specifically for high graphics performance in an era when HTML4 thought floating menus was cutting edge.

The Jobs Flash memo was crystal clear about why Flash was being booted off his platform. It was to avoid "a third party layer of software coming between the platform and the developer".

Re: What will a Chromium-only Web look like?

#206

Post by dubswithus »

dblohm7 wrote: post #187
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your argument is based purely on market share then it's basically a tautology.

How can market share not be part of the discussion concerning who controls the web? You wrote: > The fact that both Brave and Vivaldi were able to disable Google's FlOC within a very short period of time Okay, they disabled some stuff. That isn’t a fundamental divergence from the upstream project. The original argument was that Google wouldn’t control the web in a Chromium monoculture because anybody can just fork it…

> Okay, they disabled some stuff. That isn’t a fundamental divergence from the upstream project.

They created a new ad model where users are paid for their attention.

Re: What will a Chromium-only Web look like?

#207

Post by jacobolus »

jorvi wrote: post #199
skinnymuch wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comments appear to be saying that Chromium being open source makes the equation better. Like the comments defending this point about Brave and other wrapper browsers. So you’re not claiming open source is sufficient but you are seemingly defending it is a better situation. While I and some other commenters are signaling we don’t think the situation is better. To me the fundamental part of the equation is outsize…

You are under the mistaken assumption that Google maintains absolute power over the Chromium codebase. It is very permissively licensed, and Microsoft’s Edge is so successful and Microsoft is contributing a ton upstream. In a few years time they will have de-facto equal say over where the codebase goes. If Google disagrees too much, we will in fact see a fork.

Edge and Firefox are each under 5% of web browsing (among desktop browsers, each under 10%), vs. Google with well over 50%.

Furthermore, from what I can tell, Edge users are predominantly former IE users (rather than coming from other browsers), and combined IE + Edge use is still declining over time.

Re: What will a Chromium-only Web look like?

#210

Post by dredmorbius »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #170
dredmorbius wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that Google controls both the overwhelmingly dominant browser and the standard. MSIE was bypassed not by a code fork of MSIE (itself originally based on the Spyglass browser, which was a fork of the NSCA's Mosaic codebase), but by independent implementations of an HTML-standard parser . Microsoft had some influence over Web development (noteably through ActiveX) but far less than Google has now. My poi…

>My point is that Open Source of itself is not sufficient And I didn't claim that it was. My point was merely that Chromium being open source changes the equation pretty fundamentally compared to the IE situation. Whether it's enough to make a Chromium monopoly consistent with an open web, I really don't know. There are very good reasons to be sceptical.

You write here "And I didn't claim that it was", but you'd claimed initially "That's a completely different situation". (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31834544)

I'm not seeing your more recent statement as consistent with the first, given my own response: "Open source without the option for an alternate development organisation to drive or steer development direction means vey little."

Again: Microsoft's locus of control was not based on source code or standards, but on its control over the PC desktop market. MSIE shipped by default with that desktop, and any other browser, including Chrome, had to find its way to that desktop.

Microsoft has now ceded its own browser engine (Trident, I believe) for Google's (Blink), with Microsoft Edge. As this browser still ships by default with Windows, Chrome owns that platform by default.

Google also controls its own operating systems, Android (mobile and tablets) and ChromeOS (Chromebooks). Given Android's overwhelming numerical advantage in overall devices,[1] Google effecitely have Microsoft's previous leverage mechanism to themselves.

Google as the dominant search provider have an advertising advantage in advocating their browser, both within search and on Google properties with "works best with Chrome" or equivalent.

And again, Google effecitvely dominate both development of Chrome and Chromium, including gatekeeping over what code makes it in to each project, and through its own browser development, dominance within WHATWG, and ranking preferences withing Google Web Search, as well as compatibility favouritism through popular Google properties such as YouTube, Web standards themselves.

Microsoft's monopoly lock-in had a single peg, Google has four (OS, promotion, Chrome development, Web standards).

I do have to admit though, yes: It is a completely different situation. Microsoft's advantage was far weaker than Google's now is.

________________________________

Notes:

1. "As of April 2022, Android, an operating system using the Linux kernel, is the world's most-used operating system when judged by web use. It has 43% of the global market, followed by Windows with 30%, Apple iOS with 17%, macOS with 6%, then (desktop) Linux at 0.98% also using the Linux kernel." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...

My point was merely that Chromium being open source changes the equation pretty fundamentally compared to the IE situation

Post reply on HN