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Please build websites for the web, not just Google Chrome

thenextweb.com

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Re: Please build websites for the web, not just Google Chrome

#5

Post by coderdude »

HN doesn't seem to care much about this topic so I won't spend too much time on it.

Basically, people used to build sites with a specific browser in mind (IE6). A little more than a decade ago, designers took part in a "movement" to get away from this state of affairs. This included stuff like separation of concerns, progressive enhancement, css hacks, and so forth. (My opinion: responsive sites came from this crowd)

Now, although there are different circumstances and motivations, we're back to a state where most sites are designed with Chrome in mind. Or, at least, with Chrome targeted as the best browser to use one's site with.

So, same shit, different day. We learned (and humorously then went on to un-learn) some great practices and techniques for building cross-browser sites, then fell back into old bad habits once the boogie man died and was replaced.

Re: Please build websites for the web, not just Google Chrome

#7

Post by chatmasta »

bradknowles wrote: post #2

Unfortunately, thenextweb.com site doesn’t open at all for me on iOS and Safari. Hmm. Maybe they should take some of their own medicine?

You sure it’s not blocked by an overzealous content blocker? I’m never able to visit arstechnica on my phone for that reason. You can long press refresh, “reload without content blockers.”

Re: Please build websites for the web, not just Google Chrome

#8

Post by curtisblaine »

Companies will build websites for whatever gets them the most money. If supporting FF costs more than the additional revenues from only-FF users, they will build Chrome-only sites. Really surprises me how easily people forget that companies are out there to make money.

Re: Please build websites for the web, not just Google Chrome

#9

Post by herbst »

If I build for Chrome I build for like 80%. Then I can also usually assume it works for Safari and Opera. In in most cases also perfectly well for Firefox.

If there are small design issues on a minority browser it's not bad. And more than small issues are very unusual these days anyway.

Re: Please build websites for the web, not just Google Chrome

#10

Post by fanpuns »

This isn't really my area of expertise so if this already exists feel free to educate me.

Would it be possible to have a generic browser that isnt controlled by any vendor, but perhaps contributed to by all of them, which could be used as a dev standard? It doesn't even have to be available to users, just devs. Vendors could still develop their browsers any way they want, but when output diverges from this kit, they would at least know it. As a dev you could use this as your test kit and know that if it works here, it works everywhere.

I could see problems with this being backwards compatible, but at the point where the major vendors sign on, all future releases would compatible (and eventually all releases as older versions are retired).

I suppose that perhaps though this is already accomplished by Chrome, but it seems less than ideal for many reasons.

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