Right. And then when those features aren't available in the browser, that's used as a justification going back to proprietary (aka native) platforms. It's a circular argument made by people determined to return to the days before we had an Open Web, for whatever reasons. If you don't want to use the features, nobody is forcing you to do so.
83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
61–70 of 79 posts
Re: 83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, I am aware of what the behavior is, although this was a nice refresher and I appreciate it ;) The joke was, of course, surrounding the Mozilla incedent where Brendan Eich stepped down from his position as CEO apparently because of a perception that he was promoting inequality. This characterization was due to his support of prop 8 (a bill about marriage equality, or lake there of). To completely ruin the joke'…
> and generally just not being a funny joke. I thought it was damn funny. There was definitely an unintended outburst at my desk. But then...... I also thought it was spectacularly hypocritical of Mozilla to fire him for having what amounted to... ideals. Which is what Mozilla supposedly works to protect.
> But then...... I also thought it was spectacularly hypocritical of Mozilla to fire him for having what amounted to... ideals.
They didn't fire him for having ideals. One, because they didn't fire him, and, more significantly, because the problem was not him having ideal, but him being unable to determine or unwilling to take the steps necessary to effectively manage a major PR incident affecting Mozilla's relationship with users, employees, and other important stakeholders. (Or, given that he actually resigned, maybe he was quite able to determine and willing to take the necessary steps, but those steps were inconsistent with him remaining as CEO.)
Re: 83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
#63Kind of a silly article. Most top websites just serve static content with tons of ad-network crap, they would never need 83% of the features. This is like saying "the most sold vehicles in the world don't use 90% of the horsepower they have". No shit, the most sold vehicles in the world are Corollas and Civics, ie. "sit in traffic and commute" type cars. It doesn't cost anything to keep these features around, why kil…
This is why the linux desktop failed to penetrate the market. You can't say, "Well it does 80% of what most people need." Most people just surf the web, view photos, and other basic functionality. That 20% it can't do is a deal breaker. Not to mention the things most people never do, but businesses rely on like legacy/proprietary software support.
>It doesn't cost anything to keep these features around, why kill them off?
This is also why the features list of a basic Windows or Office install is miles long. Once developed, there's no cost other than maintenance of those features (updates, security, etc).
I think its hard to argue against complexity in software. The ultra-complex usually win for rational market reasons.
Re: 83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
#64this was very interesting: "SVG, for example, has a problem however you look at it: on one hand more than 15 per cent of the sites use it, on the other hand, nearly 87 per cent of blockers block it, but it's had 14 security warnings (CVEs, Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) in the last three years."
I am deeply suspicious of that number. I've never encountered a plugin or anything of the sort that provides for "blocking SVG", and it's fully supported in all recent browsers.
Paper author here. The blocking % referenced, and discussed in more detail in the paper, is the % of times a feature is used when someone visits the page, but ISNT used when you visit the page with AdBlock Plus and Ghostery installed.
In other words, its how often these popular blocking extensions prevent the JS APIs from firing.
Its not blocking SVG, its blocking (mostly fingerprinting) JS libraries from running SVG JS methods
Re: 83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
#65this was very interesting: "SVG, for example, has a problem however you look at it: on one hand more than 15 per cent of the sites use it, on the other hand, nearly 87 per cent of blockers block it, but it's had 14 security warnings (CVEs, Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) in the last three years."
Just a note on this (I'm the lead author on the paper author), the blocking rate has to do with the reduction in JS usage when you install popular blocking extensions.
So its not that extensions block SVG directly, its that AdBlock Plus and Ghostery block a bunch of libraries, and those libraries use the SVG methods to finger print (and do other stuff)
Re: 83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Retrocompatibility. It's impossible to assume that 99% of the users are using a modern browser with under 3 years. 2. We are not talking about experimentation , we are talking about deployment into production.
I agree with you. I was certainly t aggressive in time frame, but I still agree with the sentiment. We shouldn't have failed decade old features in a browser. As to point 1, you are correct and this is certainly true, however I wish it werent. I assume everyone on hacker news has either gone to college or is aware that a presedential term is 4 years long. Consider how much you as person changed in those 4 years, cons…
Consider the Jquery 3.0 that is launching now. It supports Internet Explorer 8, a browser released over 7 years ago [1]. Using jquery means, for example, you won't be using FormData for submitting forms. Heck, you won't even be using `.forEach()` on arrays.
Re: 83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
#67This seems pretty obvious to me. And at the same time, entirely not a problem.
A great example that comes to mind is the drm component that Netflix require to deliver html5 instead of that spotlight .. thing. I cannot think of any other site that has needed it - or at least, any other site I visited before it was available, that suffered for it.
And still, I consider it a requirement. That feature that I require for exactly one site.
Re: 83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
#68This is something I've noticed a lot when developing Servo. The vast majority of the time, when a site is broken in Servo, it's due to some CSS 2.1 bug or another (CSS2 has existed since 1998), or a broken DOM API that's been in the platform for years and years. Attention is disproportionately focused on the new stuff when the reality is that old standards still rule.
I wouldn't necessarily agree that the conclusion is to just rip stuff out of the Web platform, though (although there is plenty of stuff I'd love to drop). Rather, we need to implement the features in a secure way. This isn't rocket science. Notice, as usual, that the majority of these security issues are straightforward memory safety issues† in C++: e.g. https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=firefox+svg
† Food for thought for those claiming that "modern C++" solves these problems.
Re: 83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am deeply suspicious of that number. I've never encountered a plugin or anything of the sort that provides for "blocking SVG", and it's fully supported in all recent browsers.
Paper author here. The blocking % referenced, and discussed in more detail in the paper, is the % of times a feature is used when someone visits the page, but ISNT used when you visit the page with AdBlock Plus and Ghostery installed. In other words, its how often these popular blocking extensions prevent the JS APIs from firing. Its not blocking SVG, its blocking (mostly fingerprinting) JS libraries from running SVG…
Aha, thank you for the clarification. That's a lot less worrying.
Re: 83% of browser features are used by under 1% of top websites
#70Can anyone recommend an updated browser that skips most unused features to run faster, use less memory or be more secure?
I use Pale Moon, a firefox fork. I currently have ~200 tabs loaded (in a session with ~500 tabs) and it's only using 2.7 GB of RAM.
> ... even though fairly close to Gecko-based browsers like Mozilla Firefox in the way it works, is based on a different layout engine and offers a different set of features. It aims to provide close adherence to official web standards and specifications in its implementation (with minimal compromise), and purposefully excludes a number of features to strike a balance between general use, performance, and technical advancements on the Web.