4 ms·

The Chrome monoculture among developers is concerning. It's something each and every developer should consider and actively combat by changing their primary bro

The Chrome monoculture among developers is concerning. It's something each and every developer should consider and actively combat by changing their primary browser. The open web cannot flourish when built on a monopoly

kbar13 9y ago
There is a reason why chrome has such a large market share and it's not because it's preinstalled. It's simply the best browser experience in many ways.
- K0nserv 9y ago
  I'm not gonna dispute that. I've found that Firefox is an adequate replacement, however it is much more sluggish for certain sites specifically those that are javascript heavy. Like David mentions it's not really about which is the best browser, but picking a browse that isn't chrome as favour to the open web. As a side effects you'll discover a lot of bugs that were likely to otherwise be missed in both your products and others'. The Chrome monoculture among developers can easily cause a negative spiral were websites aren't tested in other browsers causing users of those browsers to be discontent with the browser and switch away from it likely to Chrome which will work. It's this exact behaviour that contributed to the IE6 situation.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > The Chrome monoculture among developers can easily cause a negative spiral were websites aren't tested in other browsers If what browser developers prefer to use has a significant influence on testing of anything other than experimental prototype / proof-of-concept work, the problem that needs to be addressed is testing practices, not developer browser choices. Trying to fix it with the latter won't work, it will just make different projects having different improper testing biases, which will make the web broken in all browsers instead of just non-Chrome browsers.
    - K0nserv 9y ago
      > If what browser developers prefer to use has a significant influence on testing of anything other than experimental prototype / proof-of-concept work, the problem that needs to be addressed is testing practices, not developer browser choices. I don't disagree that testing practice as far as cross browser testing isn't quite where it should be. However changing testing practices is a harder problem than creating diversification in developer teams. When I switched from Chrome to Firefox in my team I shifted the balance from 10 people using Chrome to 9 people using Chrome and 1 using Firefox. Running Firefox often surfaces problems in both our product and in those of other people. > Trying to fix it with the latter won't work, it will just make different projects having different improper testing biases, which will make the web broken in all browsers instead of just non-Chrome browsers. Striving for a diverse set of browsers used in any developer team helps, but tackling the testing biases is important. At a larger scale reducing the share of Chrome users on the web is a good in itself.
  - nilved 9y ago
    I am gonna dispute that. Chrome is bloated and inextensible.
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions ? The kind Firefox will only have in a release or two?
      - nilved 9y ago
        Firefox is just as bloated but at least it's extensible (for now.) Web "extensions" are Firefox' suicide.
    - rascul 9y ago
      Seems like it's impossible for a modern desktop browser not to be "bloated" considering all the crap they need to support.
      - kbar13 9y ago
        "bloated" is arbitrarily defined.
        nilved 9y ago
        No it isn't. Does your web browser do more than browse web pages? Then it's bloated. When you can log in your browser, start asking questions.
- reitanqild 9y ago
  Edit: saw you wrote "in many ways behind". Not sure if it was there all the time or not, if it was the I apologize for my lack of reading skills and the rest of you are free to ignore this comment :-/ And because people tell this story to each other and believe it. Now tell me: If it is "simply the best", since when is tree style tabs available? And if it is "simply the best", since when did it start handling multiple hundreds of tabs well? If not, can we then agree that it is very good and the one you and a number of others prefer, not "simply the best"? If not, should we also have a discussion about what car brand is "simply the best"?
  - pluma 9y ago
    I switched to Brave for a week and had to go back because the plugin ecosystem is pretty much nonexistent at this point. I switched to Firefox for another couple of weeks and had to give up because the developer tools were sluggish in comparison and plugins were frequently out of date and even multiprocessor mode was a massive problem (because plugins could silently prevent it). I'm on Linux. Neither Safari nor Edge are available, so the only other serious alternative I can think of is Opera. And I'm not going to switch my main development browser to something with practically no market share for the projects I work on. Chrome is _simply the best_ browser for web development right now. Everything else is second class at best, irrelevant at worst. Also Chrome's extension ecosystem is pretty much what Firefox's used to be at its prime: if there's a browser extension available, it's likely Chrome-first and the Chrome version will be the most consistently maintained one. I would love to see open source win, but switching my main development browser from Chrome to Firefox would mean working with a massive avoidable handicap.
- newscracker 9y ago
  > There is a reason why chrome has such a large market share and it's not because it's preinstalled. It's simply the best browser experience in many ways. I disagree that it's "simply the best browser experience in many ways" (because this is subjective, and for me Firefox always trumps Chrome by providing a much better browser experience). One big reason for Chrome's rise can be attributed to the strong advertising from Google, pushing people to install Chrome from Google Search (and probably from other Google properties as well).
- soperj 9y ago
  It is pre-installed on every android device. It's also advertised(freely) on some of the largest internet sites in the world (Google, Youtube).
AngeloAnolin 9y ago
One reason I use Chrome as a developer is because of the vast debugging tools available with it (i.e. React has React Dev Tools, AngularJS has Batarang, NG-Inspector etc..) But I generally use all major browsers, IE included when doing actual application testing.
- K0nserv 9y ago
  The fact that a lof of tooling is only available for Chrome is another side effect of the monoculture among developers. I too use Chrome for developing every now and then, but I use Firefox as my main browser for everything else.
  - colept 9y ago
    I don't think that's the monoculture of developers. Chrome was based in Webkit in it's rising years - which put it on par with Safari and Android. This meant that you could develop comfortably and do less cross-browser work up front. Developers got comfortable. Chrome is open source, extendable, and keeps up with web standards.
    - falcolas 9y ago
      > Chrome is open source No, Chromium is open source. Chrome != Chromium. There's still some secret sauce being thrown into chrome that you don't have access to. > extendable Only with JavaScript. It bugs me a bit to this day that this is deemed to be sufficient by Firefox as well. We've lost quite a few good extensions with this change. > web standards It helps that Google's team pushes most of those web standards, meaning that everyone else is typically playing catch up.
- ldiracdelta 9y ago
  The stock debugging tools are great too. As Ballmer would say, "Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. ...... Developers. Developers. Developers!"
- badosu 9y ago
Washuu 9y ago
This is a problem where I work at too. I had several front end engineers argue with me that the new features they just launched to a live site were "not broken" because "only Chrome matters".

kbar13 9y ago

There is a reason why chrome has such a large market share and it's not because it's preinstalled. It's simply the best browser experience in many ways.

K0nserv 9y ago
I'm not gonna dispute that. I've found that Firefox is an adequate replacement, however it is much more sluggish for certain sites specifically those that are javascript heavy. Like David mentions it's not really about which is the best browser, but picking a browse that isn't chrome as favour to the open web. As a side effects you'll discover a lot of bugs that were likely to otherwise be missed in both your products and others'. The Chrome monoculture among developers can easily cause a negative spiral were websites aren't tested in other browsers causing users of those browsers to be discontent with the browser and switch away from it likely to Chrome which will work. It's this exact behaviour that contributed to the IE6 situation.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The Chrome monoculture among developers can easily cause a negative spiral were websites aren't tested in other browsers If what browser developers prefer to use has a significant influence on testing of anything other than experimental prototype / proof-of-concept work, the problem that needs to be addressed is testing practices, not developer browser choices. Trying to fix it with the latter won't work, it will just make different projects having different improper testing biases, which will make the web broken in all browsers instead of just non-Chrome browsers.
  - K0nserv 9y ago
    > If what browser developers prefer to use has a significant influence on testing of anything other than experimental prototype / proof-of-concept work, the problem that needs to be addressed is testing practices, not developer browser choices. I don't disagree that testing practice as far as cross browser testing isn't quite where it should be. However changing testing practices is a harder problem than creating diversification in developer teams. When I switched from Chrome to Firefox in my team I shifted the balance from 10 people using Chrome to 9 people using Chrome and 1 using Firefox. Running Firefox often surfaces problems in both our product and in those of other people. > Trying to fix it with the latter won't work, it will just make different projects having different improper testing biases, which will make the web broken in all browsers instead of just non-Chrome browsers. Striving for a diverse set of browsers used in any developer team helps, but tackling the testing biases is important. At a larger scale reducing the share of Chrome users on the web is a good in itself.
- nilved 9y ago
  I am gonna dispute that. Chrome is bloated and inextensible.
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions ? The kind Firefox will only have in a release or two?
    - nilved 9y ago
      Firefox is just as bloated but at least it's extensible (for now.) Web "extensions" are Firefox' suicide.
  - rascul 9y ago
    Seems like it's impossible for a modern desktop browser not to be "bloated" considering all the crap they need to support.
    - kbar13 9y ago
      "bloated" is arbitrarily defined.
      - nilved 9y ago
        No it isn't. Does your web browser do more than browse web pages? Then it's bloated. When you can log in your browser, start asking questions.
reitanqild 9y ago
Edit: saw you wrote "in many ways behind". Not sure if it was there all the time or not, if it was the I apologize for my lack of reading skills and the rest of you are free to ignore this comment :-/ And because people tell this story to each other and believe it. Now tell me: If it is "simply the best", since when is tree style tabs available? And if it is "simply the best", since when did it start handling multiple hundreds of tabs well? If not, can we then agree that it is very good and the one you and a number of others prefer, not "simply the best"? If not, should we also have a discussion about what car brand is "simply the best"?
- pluma 9y ago
  I switched to Brave for a week and had to go back because the plugin ecosystem is pretty much nonexistent at this point. I switched to Firefox for another couple of weeks and had to give up because the developer tools were sluggish in comparison and plugins were frequently out of date and even multiprocessor mode was a massive problem (because plugins could silently prevent it). I'm on Linux. Neither Safari nor Edge are available, so the only other serious alternative I can think of is Opera. And I'm not going to switch my main development browser to something with practically no market share for the projects I work on. Chrome is _simply the best_ browser for web development right now. Everything else is second class at best, irrelevant at worst. Also Chrome's extension ecosystem is pretty much what Firefox's used to be at its prime: if there's a browser extension available, it's likely Chrome-first and the Chrome version will be the most consistently maintained one. I would love to see open source win, but switching my main development browser from Chrome to Firefox would mean working with a massive avoidable handicap.
newscracker 9y ago
> There is a reason why chrome has such a large market share and it's not because it's preinstalled. It's simply the best browser experience in many ways. I disagree that it's "simply the best browser experience in many ways" (because this is subjective, and for me Firefox always trumps Chrome by providing a much better browser experience). One big reason for Chrome's rise can be attributed to the strong advertising from Google, pushing people to install Chrome from Google Search (and probably from other Google properties as well).
soperj 9y ago
It is pre-installed on every android device. It's also advertised(freely) on some of the largest internet sites in the world (Google, Youtube).

AngeloAnolin 9y ago

One reason I use Chrome as a developer is because of the vast debugging tools available with it (i.e. React has React Dev Tools, AngularJS has Batarang, NG-Inspector etc..) But I generally use all major browsers, IE included when doing actual application testing.

K0nserv 9y ago
The fact that a lof of tooling is only available for Chrome is another side effect of the monoculture among developers. I too use Chrome for developing every now and then, but I use Firefox as my main browser for everything else.
- colept 9y ago
  I don't think that's the monoculture of developers. Chrome was based in Webkit in it's rising years - which put it on par with Safari and Android. This meant that you could develop comfortably and do less cross-browser work up front. Developers got comfortable. Chrome is open source, extendable, and keeps up with web standards.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    > Chrome is open source No, Chromium is open source. Chrome != Chromium. There's still some secret sauce being thrown into chrome that you don't have access to. > extendable Only with JavaScript. It bugs me a bit to this day that this is deemed to be sufficient by Firefox as well. We've lost quite a few good extensions with this change. > web standards It helps that Google's team pushes most of those web standards, meaning that everyone else is typically playing catch up.
ldiracdelta 9y ago
The stock debugging tools are great too. As Ballmer would say, "Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. ...... Developers. Developers. Developers!"
badosu 9y ago

Washuu 9y ago

This is a problem where I work at too. I had several front end engineers argue with me that the new features they just launched to a live site were "not broken" because "only Chrome matters".