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I'm a full time engineer on the web and I don't really agree with this. I much prefer working with Chrome than any other browser. Even IE edge (supposedly Micro

I'm a full time engineer on the web and I don't really agree with this. I much prefer working with Chrome than any other browser. Even IE edge (supposedly Microsoft's fresh start) doesn't have all the full support for various features as Chrome does -- just head over to look at the comparison tables at caniuse (ex: http://caniuse.com/#search=blend-mode http://caniuse.com/#search=blend-mode). And the developer experience in other browsers (save for maybe Firefox) are vastly inferior to Chrome's dev tools. Firebug in firefox used to be the best, but even with Mozilla's new efforts at the developer edition of Firefox, the experience is still poor. Lack of correct support for sourcemaps, performance, and general UI polish of their tools are still lacking. Another point I feel should be made is that IE still doesn't have a native Max OS or Linux release. This is an embarrassment to Microsoft, and its why I still don't take anything they do seriously on the web. If you're going to create a new browser, you should at least make it accessible to most of the devs -- many of whom don't even use your OS anymore. Chrome also has a few very useful projects, such as Chromium, node webkit and Electron (what slack uses). Where is this kind of support from the other browser vendors? Why doesn't Apple have a fully integrated native browser development envrionment for Safari? Why did Mozilla's FireFox OS die on the vine and why haven't they come up with something like Electron? The executives and senior technical leadership at these projects and companies should be embarrassed.

kuschku 11y ago
> doesn't have all the full support for various features as Chrome does But isn’t that exactly what IE did? Embrace the standards, Extend the standards with their custom things – be they ActiveX, Silverlight, or NaCl Extinguish the competition.
- ubertaco 11y ago
  Yeah? And what "custom extensions" does Chrome push? NaCl is almost dead, to be replaced by the standard WebAssembly. Everything else is a standard ES2015 spec that Chrome, Edge, and Firefox have implemented (to varying degrees) and Safari has thus far failed to implement.
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    Dart? They pushed that one reasonably hard until the writing was on the wall.
    - bla2 11y ago
      Was dart ever part of chrome? I didn't follow that closely, seemed like a separate effort from Google.
      - quandrum 11y ago
        Dart never shipped to mainline chrome. Developers could download a special version of chrome with Dart.
        pcwalton 11y ago
        Additionally, there was the aborted upstream WebKit effort to allow abstraction over multiple languages with the goal of supporting Dart, and the Oilpan effort had Dart support as a major motivation.
  - callahad 11y ago
    Chrome pretty significantly jumped the gun on shipping Shadow DOM and other Custom Element features unprefixed and on by default two years ago while there were significant outstanding objections from other vendors and no stable spec. We're only just now digging out from that mess.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - ubertaco 11y ago
      The only objections I remember hearing were from Apple. And implementing something that is in the standardization process with the TC39 still doesn't strike me as "custom extensions".
    - 11y ago
pcwalton 11y ago
> Why did Mozilla's FireFox OS die on the vine and why haven't they come up with something like Electron? The executives and senior technical leadership at these projects and companies should be embarrassed. That's more than a little hyperbolic, given that Electron and node-webkit aren't Google projects and are in fact coded to an API Google explicitly considers unstable and liable to break at any time. Disclaimer: I'm probably included in the group of people you claim "should be embarrassed".
- elcritch 11y ago
  When last I was looking into this, Chrome's embed API is much better documented and supported than Gecko's. It seems that the Gecko API that does exist is largely due to the efforts the Sailfish OS / Jolly people put into it. Hopefully servo doesn't follow the same path. I'm hoping to be able to get into that code base soon-ish. :)
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    > When last I was looking into this, Chrome's embed API is much better documented and supported than Gecko's. Sure, but WebKit2 is better than both, as only WebKit2 is a stable API that is C-based and can be used from multiple languages [1]. > Hopefully servo doesn't follow the same path. Proper embedding support, with a supported API, is a key goal of Servo. [1]: https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2 https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2
    - elcritch 11y ago
      It's great to hear Servo is focusing on embedding support. The developers seems pretty responsive to feedback as well, which is great. Thanks for the info on webkit, need to follow up on it.

kuschku 11y ago

> doesn't have all the full support for various features as Chrome does But isn’t that exactly what IE did? Embrace the standards, Extend the standards with their custom things – be they ActiveX, Silverlight, or NaCl Extinguish the competition.

ubertaco 11y ago
Yeah? And what "custom extensions" does Chrome push? NaCl is almost dead, to be replaced by the standard WebAssembly. Everything else is a standard ES2015 spec that Chrome, Edge, and Firefox have implemented (to varying degrees) and Safari has thus far failed to implement.
- pcwalton 11y ago
  Dart? They pushed that one reasonably hard until the writing was on the wall.
  - bla2 11y ago
    Was dart ever part of chrome? I didn't follow that closely, seemed like a separate effort from Google.
    - quandrum 11y ago
      Dart never shipped to mainline chrome. Developers could download a special version of chrome with Dart.
      - pcwalton 11y ago
        Additionally, there was the aborted upstream WebKit effort to allow abstraction over multiple languages with the goal of supporting Dart, and the Oilpan effort had Dart support as a major motivation.
- callahad 11y ago
  Chrome pretty significantly jumped the gun on shipping Shadow DOM and other Custom Element features unprefixed and on by default two years ago while there were significant outstanding objections from other vendors and no stable spec. We're only just now digging out from that mess.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - ubertaco 11y ago
    The only objections I remember hearing were from Apple. And implementing something that is in the standardization process with the TC39 still doesn't strike me as "custom extensions".
  - 11y ago

pcwalton 11y ago

> Why did Mozilla's FireFox OS die on the vine and why haven't they come up with something like Electron? The executives and senior technical leadership at these projects and companies should be embarrassed. That's more than a little hyperbolic, given that Electron and node-webkit aren't Google projects and are in fact coded to an API Google explicitly considers unstable and liable to break at any time. Disclaimer: I'm probably included in the group of people you claim "should be embarrassed".

elcritch 11y ago
When last I was looking into this, Chrome's embed API is much better documented and supported than Gecko's. It seems that the Gecko API that does exist is largely due to the efforts the Sailfish OS / Jolly people put into it. Hopefully servo doesn't follow the same path. I'm hoping to be able to get into that code base soon-ish. :)
- pcwalton 11y ago
  > When last I was looking into this, Chrome's embed API is much better documented and supported than Gecko's. Sure, but WebKit2 is better than both, as only WebKit2 is a stable API that is C-based and can be used from multiple languages [1]. > Hopefully servo doesn't follow the same path. Proper embedding support, with a supported API, is a key goal of Servo. [1]: https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2 https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2
  - elcritch 11y ago
    It's great to hear Servo is focusing on embedding support. The developers seems pretty responsive to feedback as well, which is great. Thanks for the info on webkit, need to follow up on it.