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Chrome breaks the Web

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Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#271

Post by edoceo »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #218
daanlo wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A website is owned by someone. If they decide that in their shop they want to have a carpet floor it is up to users not to visit that shop (if they don't like that), but not up to adidas to turn the floor into tarmac, because that works better for their shoes...

The browser is owned by the user. If the user wants it to autocomplete a field, then it should autocomplete the field.

Users don't even know. And if you offer a professional site, with support, you will field calls where chrome autocomplete confused the user and doesn't behave like the spec. The answer is buried in a chrome bug report. Stupid

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#272

Post by alexssung »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #238
daanlo wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A website is owned by someone. If they decide that in their shop they want to have a carpet floor it is up to users not to visit that shop (if they don't like that), but not up to adidas to turn the floor into tarmac, because that works better for their shoes...

If the website says to display ads, my browser will properly ignore that. If the website says to prevent the user from switching away from the tab, my browser will properly ignore hat. If the website tries to take over my system and install malware, my browser will properly ignore that. And if the browser tries to break the ability to remember passwords, my browser will properly ignore that too. Websites consist of c…

The difference between autocomplete=off and the rest of your examples is that there are actually positive UX use cases for disabling autocomplete on certain inputs (e.g. when you are an admin editing existing users)

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#273

Post by laumars »

FussyZeus wrote: post #251
laumars wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Netscape is irrelevant. Netscape is entirely relevant. The question was raised about how different Google / Chrome are compared to Microsoft / IE and the answer is Netscape. Microsoft tried to tie the internet into their own platform, Windows + IE, due to them pushing non-standard rendering and ActiveX. Whatever your opinion of Chrome's break from standards might be, Google simply are not trying to lock people into…

> Whatever your opinion of Chrome's break from standards might be, Google simply are not trying to lock people into Chrome on Android / ChromeOS. That assertion is laughable on it's face. Of course Google does brand lock-in, the fact that their brand is further reaching across more markets than Windows/IE were doesn't negate that they attempt brand lock-in at every opportunity they can. In fact Chrome largely was sta…

Because it's an obvious way to get more people to default to Google Search. Just like how IE defaults to Bing. Until recently Google was the biggest contributor to the Mozilla Foundation due to their deal to enable Google as Firefox's default search engine.

There isn't any benefit in Google locking users into their free software if it means users on other platforms can no longer use Google's revenue generating services.

Your point about brand awareness is valid but not really the same as what I was originally discussing (software lock ins). Eg Google's products work fine on other browsers so there's no actual technical lock in however users are encouraged towards Google because of brand familiarity and browser defaults for search and home page.

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#274

Post by pathseeker »

daanlo wrote: post #214
ghostly_s wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dude, autocomplete=off should just work. Chrome does the WRONG THING. Screw you. I've probably encountered 'autocomplete=off' thousands of times in my browsing history, and maybe 1% of the time was it being used for something that wasn't user-hostile. I don't care what the spec says, I care about what's good for users. If the spec writers aren't willing to embrace that, vendors will ignore it.

A website is owned by someone. If they decide that in their shop they want to have a carpet floor it is up to users not to visit that shop (if they don't like that), but not up to adidas to turn the floor into tarmac, because that works better for their shoes...

autocomplete is completely behavior inside the user's browser. You do not own the user's browser. Would you also like to block zooming or other accessibility features because you don't like the way it looks?

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#276

Post by pathseeker »

michaelmrose wrote: post #253
ivanhoe wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are valid arguments for both sides, but instead of forcing this upon everyone, Chrome team could have added it as a config option. Set the defaults for autocomplete anyway you like, and then let the user change the behaviour only on some sites. Or if you don't wish to pollute the settings with this, extract this behaviour into an extension and let the people choose if it bothers them enough to go and install it…

Either googles solution is better or its not. If it is then google should make it the default even if it provides an option. Then even if they provide the option 99.999% will use the default rendering the option basically worthless. If its not they should probably just work how everyone else works.

>Either googles solution is better or its not.

No, it's better for users who read the auto-filled boxes to make sure they are sane (which is what I do). It's not good for users that don't understand what auto-fill is (i.e. they think the website is suggesting it to them).

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#277

Post by gw »

Klathmon wrote: post #210
gw wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really paternalistic attitude. The local presbyterian church down my street can't afford a full-time web developer to update their website every time Google decides to break it. The idea that sacrificing actual functionality in exchange for smoother scrolling makes the web "better" is a claim that makes sense only in a terrifically isolated bubble.

Yes but not all breaking changes are equal. The church down your street was extremely unlikely to even be impacted by this change let alone have functionality broken by it. This only affected websites which were using blocking scrolling event listeners. Scrolljacking, some mapping websites where you were able to tap and pan around, and some sticky headers, and only on mobile devices using chrome. And of those feature…

> The church down your street was extremely unlikely to even be impacted by this change

Why do you say that? Let's say, for example, that they use Discourse [1] to provide a web forum for churchgoers on their website. Oops! Mobile scrolling is completely broken for them [2] until they manage to update Discourse to the latest version. Is this the flu shot you were talking about?

[1] https://www.discourse.org/ [2] https://meta.discourse.org/t/mobile-view-scroll-bar-slider-b...

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#278

Post by jancsika »

Cacti wrote: post #184

Let's be clear here, this isn't a change in favor of users. This is a change in favor of Google, to speed up their browser, and in favor of their advertisers, for better overlay control.

Is there a list somewhere of software which strives not to break the higher level things that depend on said software?

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#279

Post by gkya »

cpeterso wrote: post #199
gkya wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does autocomplete=off affect password managers?

Password manager applications that are not built into the browser use clipboard pasting to insert passwords into login form fields. If browsers honored autocomplete=off, websites could block the password manager applications from entering the passwords (on their own websites).

I don't believe password managers need autocompletion to insert passwords etc. Doesn't it only disable the completion popup?

Re: Chrome breaks the Web

#280

Post by mark-r »

bluGill wrote: post #89
biotech wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is this different from websites that think it's okay to force you to abide by ridiculous password restrictions The difference is that disabling of "autocomplete" is a user interface issue, and can be addressed by the browser I use. The problem of ridiculous password restrictions is not usually something that can be controlled by the client. I like the idea of convincing IT to change crazy password policies, but…

You don't necessarily have to convince IT. If you instead convince their legal department that by not following the NIST standards for passwords they are opening their company to a lawsuit, that could get results a lot faster. When IT is convinced they have to decide when to put it into the budget. If they think their policy is not okay, just not perfect the fix will probably be buried in the bottom of the budget pil…

Are these the guidelines you speak of?

https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html#memsecretver

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