Comment by pjmlp
Comment by pjmlp 2 days ago
A monopoly achieved thanks to everyone that forgot about IE lesson, and instead of learning Web standards, rather ships Chrome alongside their application.
Comment by pjmlp 2 days ago
A monopoly achieved thanks to everyone that forgot about IE lesson, and instead of learning Web standards, rather ships Chrome alongside their application.
Devs, particularly those with pressure to ship or who don't know better, unfortunately see 'it works in Chrome' as 'it works', even if it is a quirk of Chrome that causes it to work, or if they use Chrome related hacks that break compatibility with other browsers to get it to work in Chrome.
- Sometimes the standards don't define some exact behavior and it is left for the browser implementer to come up with. Chrome implements it one way and other browsers implement it the other way. Both are compatible with the standards.
- Sometimes the app contains errors, but certain permissive behaviors of Chrome mean it works ok and the app is shipped. The developers work around the guesses that Chrome makes and cobble the app together. (there may be a load of warnings in the console). Other browsers don't make the same guesses so the app is shipped in a state that it will only work on Chrome.
- Sometimes Chrome (or mobile Safari) specific APIs or functions are used as people don't know any better.
- Some security / WAF / anti-bot software relies on Chrome specific JavaScript quirks (that there may be no standards for) and thinks that the user using Firefox or another browser that isn't Chrome or iOS safari is a bot and blocks them.
In many ways, Chrome is the new IE, through no fault of Google or the authors of other browsers.
Before shipping any web site/app, make sure it works in Apple Safari Mobile is usually the one that is dragging it is foot in Web Standards.
No, Safari is the new IE, nothing works on it, it's full of bugs and Apple is actively preventing web standards to move on. Do you remember how much Apple prevented web apps to be a thing by blocking web push, and breaking most things if run in PWA mode?
Apple are by far the worst offender and I can't wait for Safari to die
It’s death by a million papercuts with safari.
I made a reader app for learning languages. Wiktionary has audio for a word. Playing the file over web URL works fine, but when I add caching to play from cached audio blob, safari sometimes delays the audio by 0.5-15 seconds. Works fine on every other browser.
It’s infuriating and it can’t be unintentional.
> how is Chrome incompatible with web standards? It is one of the best implementer of them.
They have so much market share that they control the standards bodies. The tail wags the dog.
This is not true yet, but it’s getting close.
The pattern is this:
- Google publishes a specification.
- They raise request for feedback from the Mozilla and WebKit teams.
- Mozilla and WebKit find security and privacy problems.
- Google deploys their implementation anyway.
- This functionality gets listed on sites like whatpwacando.today
- Web developers complain about Safari being behind and accuse Apple of holding back the web.
- Nobody gives a shit about Firefox.
So we have two key problems, but neither of them are “Google controls the standards bodies”. The problem is that they don’t need to.
Firstly, a lot of web developers have stopped caring about the standards process. Whatever functionality Google adds is their definition of “the web”. This happened at the height of Internet Explorer dominance too. A huge number of web developers would happily write Internet Explorer-only sites and this monoculture damaged the web immensely. Chrome is the new Internet Explorer.
The second problem is that nobody cares about Firefox any more. The standards process doesn’t really work when there are only two main players. At the moment, you can honestly say “Look, the standards process is that any standard needs two interoperable implementations. If Google can’t convince anybody outside of Google to implement something, it can’t be a standard.” This makes the unsuitability of those proposals a lot plainer to see.
But now that Firefox market share has vanished, that argument is turning into “Google and Apple disagree about whether to add functionality to the web”. This hides the unsuitability of those proposals. This too has happened before – this is how the web worked when Internet Explorer was battling Netscape Navigator for dominance in the 90s, where browsers were adding all kinds of stupid things unilaterally. Again, Chrome is the new Internet Explorer.
The web standards process desperately needs either Firefox to regain standing or for a new independent rendering engine (maybe Ladybird?) to arise. And web developers need to stop treating everything that Google craps out as if it’s a done deal. Google don’t and shouldn’t control the definition of the web. We’ve seen that before, and a monoculture like that paralyses the industry.
webdev in 2005: webapp spa just werk everywhere, and werk fast and efficiently, only add these 20 lines of code for compatibility :3
webdev in 2025: OMGWTF NOTHING WORKS WITHOUT THIS NEW SHINY FEATURE RELEASED YESTERDAY AAAAAAAAA!!!!!111
Why not forbid them to ship any non-standard feature in their pre-installed default build of Chrome? Experimental features could be made available in a developer build, that would have to be manually installed in a non-obvious way, so that they cannot gain traction before standardization.
> Firstly, a lot of web developers have stopped caring about the standards process. Whatever functionality Google adds is their definition of “the web”.
Businesses who hire such web developers will lose huge amounts of sales, since 90% of visitors are on mobile and half of those are on Safari.
> Mozilla and WebKit find security and privacy problems
This is a little disingenuous because Apple often falsely claims security when it’s to hold back tech that could loosen the App Store grasp.
Web features being pushed by Google via Chrome, aren't standards, unless everyone actually agrees they are worthy of becoming one.
Shipping Electron junk, strengthens Google and Chrome market presence, and the reference to Web standards, why bother when it is whatever Chrome is capable of.
Web devs with worthy skills of forgotten times, would rather use regular processes alongside the default system browser.
Are we really trying to argue about cross platform GUI in 2025? This was solved decades ago. Just not in ways that are trying to directly appeal to modern webdevs by jamming a browser into every desktop application.
I don't even hate Electron that much. I'm working on a toy project using Electron right now for various reasons. This was just a bizarre angle to approach from.
The alternative already exists, processes using the system browser, for several decades now.
Or actually learn how we use to ship software on the glory days of 8, 16 and 32 bit home platforms.
Now I do agree there are no alternatives for people that only care about shipping ChromeOS all over the place.
I’m actually working on an alternative called Slint => https://slint.dev
> how is Chrome incompatible with web standards? It is one of the best implementer of them.
Easy when they make Chrome do whatever they want and call it a living standard (whatever that is). There is no such thing as web standards now.
Consumers never really pick products for ideological reasons, no matter how galling that is to ideologues
You should block adds for practical reasons too though, not just for moral reasons.
I can't fathom how there are so many devs that don't use adblockers. It is so strange and when I look over their shoulders I get a shocking reminder how the web looks for them.
I think ads go well past "ideaology". very few like ads, and they have only gotten more persistent over recent years.
Being prescriptive about human nature will always be frustrating. You and I can argue about what consumers “should” do but the reality is they will always pick the highest perceived benefit at the lowest perceived cost, even if deeper technical knowledge or improved ideological perspective would change those choices.
They have nothing to pick, google already picked chrome for them.
I don't really mind about what people should do. Cats should probably not kill birds when they aren't hungry. But my opinion has no bearing on cats.
My lament is more about the current situation and our apparent inability to escape it.
In this case, I may also be annoyed a bit about your rant on ideologues. Just because people don't make decisions based on their ideology doesn't mean they don't make decisions based on ideology.
Consumers pick _largely_ based on cost and features, with a things like brand, ethics, and environment coming second. However, consumers can only pick an option from choices they've heard of. Advertising is about getting into the list (and influencing choice a bit by demonstrating the brand image); the product itself still has to a good choice for the customer to make a purchase.
> with a things like brand, ethics, and environment coming second
I don't think that's true at all - usually brand comes first and ethics are not even considered.
> the product itself still has to a good choice for the customer to make a purchase
Not at all, the consumer only needs to be made to believe that it's a good choice which is very far from being the same thing.
KDE invented Electron, when they built KHTML as independently embeddable HTML + CSS + JS engine.
Mozilla did it with Gecko even earlier, really — but they gave up on it to focus on browser itself. (There were a number of Gecko-based browsers like GNOME default browser Epiphany using it)
Apple built WebKit on top of KHTML just as Gecko stopped being updated: I guess they invented it too.
Tools like Windmill (web rendering automation for testing) took programmable concept further.
And Sun did very similar things with Java applets and Java applet runtime for desktop.
Only because Microsoft got slapped on the wrist way back when.
Google should get slapped too, and they might be headed that way...
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/20/nx-s1-5367750/google-breakup-...
Safari is also pretty user-hostile, which is why Apple is getting sued by the DOJ for purposely hobbling Safari while forbidding any other browser engine on IOS. They did this so that developers are forced to write native apps, which allows Apple to skim 30% off any purchase made through an app.
There's a huge difference between antitrust concerns, and mass surveillance and anti-user hostility. MS' business back then was to sell software, not monetise users.
> Apple is getting sued by the DOJ for purposely hobbling Safari
I don’t believe the lawsuit claims this, does it?
> which allows Apple to skim 30% off any purchase made through an app.
This is untrue.
- Most developers pay 15% for in-app purchases. Only the tiny proportion of developers earning more than a million dollars a year pay 30% and even then, it’s 15% for subscriptions after the first year.
- This is not any purchase made through an app. This only applies to digital goods and services.
> IE was far less user-hostile than Chrome.
What exactly do you mean by this?
IE was horrible to use which is why so many people switched to Firefox. It wasn't because of web standards.
IE didn't have tabs when every other browser moved to that.
IE didn't block pop ups when every other browser would do that.
Excuse me. If it's on MDN, I'm going to use it if it's useful for my app. Not my fault if not all browsers can keep up! Half JK. If I get user complaints I'll patch them for other browsers but I'm only one person so it's hard and I rely on user feedback. (Submit bug reports y'all)
The issue is completely different if the users of an app or a website are customers. Then you have to make it work for them or you'll lose sales. If it's non-commercial project then it doesn't matter if it works with all browsers or not.
Not everyone. Some of us used Firefox all along and didn't just go with the "default" invasive thing.
That's fundamentally a mischaracterization.
Everyone focused on short term gains. Optimizing for browser with 30% market share, backed by Google makes more sense than a browser with 20%. Repeat with 40% and 20% respectively. And so on, and so on.
There isn't a lesson to learn. It's just short term thinking.
Now Google has enough power and lacks scruples that would prevent it from exploiting.
The answer is antitrust.
The FTC / DOJ should strip Google of Chrome.
Honestly, they should split Google into four or five "baby Bell"-type companies. They're ensnaring the public and web commerce in so many ways:
- Chrome URL bar is a "search bar"
- You have to pay to maintain your trademark even if you own the .com, because other parties can place ads in front of you with Google Search. (Same on Google Play Store.)
- Google search is the default search
- Paid third parties for Google search to be the default search
- Paid third parties for Google Chrome to be the default browser
- Required handset / Android manufacturers to bundle Google Play services
- Own Adsense and a large percentage of web advertising
- Made Google Payments the default for pay with Android
- Made Google accounts the default
- Via Google Accounts, removes or dampens the ability for companies to know their customer
- Steers web standards in a way advantageous to Google
- Pulls information from websites into Google's search interface, removing the need to use the websites providing the data (same as most AI tools now)
- Use Chrome to remove adblock and other extensions that harm their advertising revenues
- Use Adsense, Chrome performance, and other signals to rank Search results
- Owns YouTube, the world's leading media company - one company controls too much surface area of how you publish and advertise
- Pushes YouTube results via Google and Android
... and that's just scratching the surface.
Many big tech companies should face this same judgment, but none of the rest are as brazen or as vampiric as Google.
Yes to everything except the first statement:
> The answer is antitrust.
Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly, I agree
But another answer is "Firefox"
I would love if some of these projects that fall backward into loads of money would stay lean, and invest that money in a way that allowed them to become truly independent. So when the money dries up, or the funding becomes dirty, they have the freedom to cut ties and continue their lean operations, self-funded by the interest from their investments.
> So why do people choose Chrome?
It’s actually kinda simple: they don’t, at least not continuously. It’s “what you use” because you decided that’s true at some point in the past. All you have to do now is decide that some other browser is “what you use”. You can even take it a step further and decide that Chrome is “not what you use”.
(And actually, if you go through with it, you might discover reasons for why you don’t want to switch like “bookmarks” and “saved passwords”. In my opinion, if it is not easy to transfer those things, that is further reason to switch because vendor lock-in is user-hostile.)
Chrome is explicitly “not what I use” however there are literally services I cannot use on a firefox derived browser so I must have a chromium derived browser installed and occasionally use it.
For a normal user they would just switch back to chrome because that is what works, they don’t care about our complaints, they care that what they want to use works.
Pocket - fair enough (though Google probably uploads all it can). But performance? No way. Unless you are talking about Google properties which are specifically un-optimized for Firefox, in which case I don't think it is Firefox you should avoid.
> Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly
No it isn't. If you want your capitalism to be liberal, you need antitrust, true. If you only want capitalism, and don't really care about the 'liberty' part, you can check the mercantile capitalism of old. It worked quite well for people with power.
Capitalism is a great model that results in evolutionary pressures for the efficient development of goods and services.
One failure mode of unchecked and unregulated capitalism is the establishment of monopolies that can starve oxygen from the rest of the ecosystem.
In order to have maximally efficient and broadly beneficial capitalism, you need strong anti-trust mechanisms to reoxygenate the environment for new competition. Regular enforcement also means that labor and investment capital reap the most rewards instead of calcified, legacy incumbents.
Companies need to be constantly fighting to survive. If they're sitting comfortable and growing without controls, something went wrong and the rest of the fitness landscape is being distorted by an invasive species.
Antitrust Regulation is incredibly pro-market and pro-competition.
Mercantile capitalism was regulated and under the power of colonizer states though. The East India Company had to follow the British Crown orders, as were the different transatlantic companies. The competition was mostly between nation-state rather than between companies. Actually, China started consolidating its industry and "Capitalism with chineese characteristic" look a lot like modern mercantile capitalism.
> instead of learning Web standards, rather ships Chrome alongside their application
I am confused.
- The "shipping Chrome alongside their application" part seems to refer to Electron; but Electron is hardly guilty of what is described in the article.
- The "learning web standards" bit seems to impune web developers; but how are they guilty of the Chrome monopoly? If anything, they are guilty of shipping react apps instead of learning web standards; but react apps work equally well (or poorly) in all major browsers.
- Finally, how is Chrome incompatible with web standards? It is one of the best implementer of them.