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A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

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Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#81

Post by oblio »

mrtksn wrote: post #73
tommiegannert wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE was absolutely hated for not evolving. I'm curious what "its own vision" was, other than "do as little as possible, while Mozilla and Opera keeps pushing forward." Now, this is from the perspective of the web developer. I don't think IE was ever hated the same way from the end-user perspective. Chrome is still innovating, but now end-users hate it, because it's trying to be too much. The "new IE" hat still belongs…

> I'm curious what "its own vision" was The JS and CSS and HTML box model worked differently, the websites were displayed correctly only on IE or only on other browsers. People put text that says "best viewed in Internet Explorer 6" at the bottom of the page or straight out blocked users from displaying the page in other browsers and encouraged them to download IE - just the same thing we have with Chrome today when…

As crazy as that sounds, IE had a better development team until IE6 basically killed off its competition. It was more stable than equivalent browsers, it had more features, I think it was even developed faster than competitors.

Which sounds a lot like Chrome, except closed source. Those considering how big and cumbersome browsers are... does open source that matter that much in the grand scheme of things? Just browser complexity is a HUGE moat, there are probably 5-10 organizations that can sustain leading edge browser development 10+ years.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#82

Post by oblio »

Semaphor wrote: post #72
tommiegannert wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE was absolutely hated for not evolving. I'm curious what "its own vision" was, other than "do as little as possible, while Mozilla and Opera keeps pushing forward." Now, this is from the perspective of the web developer. I don't think IE was ever hated the same way from the end-user perspective. Chrome is still innovating, but now end-users hate it, because it's trying to be too much. The "new IE" hat still belongs…

Later, IE was also hated for being tied to the OS (which was related but different to the "not evolving"). Another thing Safari has. So yeah, I also fully agree. Safari is still the new IE.

On a somewhat funny, somewhat related note:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_UNIX

It doesn't disprove your point, it's just a cute bit of trivia.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#85

Post by jillesvangurp »

detuur wrote: post #71
yankput wrote: post #31

How is jpeg xl “hostile”, it’s just a new format. Does Chrome really need to support every new image format?

It was/is a very well thought-out format that had a lot of industry signalling they were willing or even enthusiastic about supporting it, which happens virtually never for new image formats. All the major browsers were working on support, many image processing pipelines were being updated. Everyone agreed that it was not just a major improvement, but actually the best option out of all the contenders out there. Even…

A possible reason might be some patents owned by Microsoft: https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/17/microsoft_ans_patent/

That's also a good reason for others to drop support until licensing of these patents is clarified.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#86

Post by frou_dh »

mrtksn wrote: post #57

Remember the "Safari is the new IE" narrative? Just because Safari doesn't support some API doesn't make it IE, IE wasn't an inferior browser at the beginning either. What made IE the IE everyone hates was its departure from standards(?) and enforcing its own vision of the web thanks to its enormous market share. On IE's case, MS probably stagnated it to prevent competition against its desktop Apps business and on Go…

> Remember the "$BROWSER is the new IE" narrative?

Yes, it's always been much like the "Everyone I Don't Like Is Hitler" meme.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#87

Post by oblio »

kramerger wrote: post #65
tgv wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you think the problem with Firefox' UX that keeps so many people from switching is? I think it's not UX, but pure marketing.

People have all kinds of weird excuses for not using Firefox. Sometimes it feels like "Sure, Chrome sold my kids data to human traffickers. But I can't switch to Firefox because I really _need_ MIDI-2 over websocket support" Sure, FF is not perfect but a lot of issues is due to sites being optimised for webkit and that will not change as long as Chrome has 80% marketshare. You need to sacrifice a little for freedom.

> that will not change as long as Chrome has 80% marketshare. You need to sacrifice a little for freedom.

And herein lies the rub. 20% of people, at best, will sacrifice convenience for freedom.

Firefox and Chrome overtook IE because they were move convenient to use (Firefox had tabs and extensions, Chrome had a more reliable multi-process architecture and more CSS/JS/... features faster).

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#88

Post by euroderf »

lol768 wrote: post #74
mrtksn wrote: post #57

Remember the "Safari is the new IE" narrative? Just because Safari doesn't support some API doesn't make it IE, IE wasn't an inferior browser at the beginning either. What made IE the IE everyone hates was its departure from standards(?) and enforcing its own vision of the web thanks to its enormous market share. On IE's case, MS probably stagnated it to prevent competition against its desktop Apps business and on Go…

Safari caused me by far the most issues, back when I was doing frontend in ~2017/2018, in terms of how it complied with web standards (I wasn't as fussed at the standards it didn't support - at least I knew!) and rendered the web application I was working on across desktop, iPad and iPhone. I spent more time chasing Safari bugs and rendering idiosyncrasies than I did dealing with IE11, frankly.

Satisfied Safari user here. Chrome had me chasing shiny, shiny but nowadays if something doesn't run right in Safari, life goes on, and Apple ecosystem integration more than compensates. Disclaimer: I am not a web dev.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#89

Post by viscousviolin »

misnome wrote: post #78
hutzlibu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads and tracking(called studies) enabled by default from the browser - and marketing itself as privacy orientated. "What features do you need that only Chromium can give you?" WebGPU and sone features with webworkers.

This. The first thing I have to do on firefox is turn off a load of advertising. That, crypto, and the Mr.Robot extension fiasco burned a _lot_ of goodwill.

Are you talking about firefox not blocking website adds by default?

I hadn't heard about the Mr.Robot fiasco, that's seriously troubling..

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#90

Post by Semaphor »

mrtksn wrote: post #76
Semaphor wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Later, IE was also hated for being tied to the OS (which was related but different to the "not evolving"). Another thing Safari has. So yeah, I also fully agree. Safari is still the new IE.

The reason IE was hated for being tied in the OS was because the OS was crashing due to the IE bugs. That's not the case with macOS or iOS at all, just because the OS provides a JS engine out of the box doesn't make it Windows Me grade.

I disagree. It made it, so people with an older OS could not get a current IE. So you had ancient IE version linger for years and years.

And with Safari, I can’t test any specific issues because we only have one mac, and it’s old and can’t run a current Safari. The situation is slightly better than with IE, as multiple macOS versions apparently (or so I was told) can run a newer Safari, but still not all.

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