14 ms·

It seems like more and more, Google is leveraging their near-monopoly on web browsing to just skip the proposal process and do whatever they want without discus

by _bxg1 8y ago

It seems like more and more, Google is leveraging their near-monopoly on web browsing to just skip the proposal process and do whatever they want without discussion.

est 8y ago
in this case it looked OK > Though existing HTML support for id and name attributes specifies the target element directly in the fragment, most other mime types make use of this x=y pattern in the fragment, such as Media Fragments (e.g. #track=audio&t=10,20), PDF (e.g. #page=12) or CSV (e.g. #row=4). fragments is already there but most pages do not have a clickable ID attribute. If Chrome could automatically provide one I think it's more convenient than F12 a devtool for links.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  IE 5 was also welcomed with joy when it arrived.
- peteretep 8y ago
  > in this case it looked OK That’s not really the point
  - gammateam 8y ago
    I’m fine skiing down this slippery slope
- detaro 8y ago
  Although there already was a proposed standard by a W3C group for doing this, although it is a lot more complicated (with a bunch of variations, but even implementing one of those would be nice): https://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-states/#json-examples-converted-to-fragment-identifiers https://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-states/#json-examples-conver...
jonathankoren 8y ago
It’s almost as if Google is the new Microsoft!
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
  - EGreg 8y ago
    Who are they embracing? They ARE a web based company, why extinguish web browsing?
    - ToFab123 8y ago
      With AMP they are trying to become the web.
      - SquareWheel 8y ago
        What does that even mean? AMP is built on WebComponents, which are an existing web standard. That's no less standard than anything else using custom elements.
        gammateam 8y ago
        This guy AMPs
        gcb0 8y ago
        amp is a self serving standard. Nowhere in the standard "higher search ranking on google inc" is mentioned as a must have feature. Yet it is the only feature anyone care about when discussing adoption.
        SquareWheel 8y ago
        If that were true (and I'm not so sure it is), then you'd blame the search team for letting it be a ranking factor. It has nothing to do with web standards.
throwaway415415 8y ago
Browsers have always done that
- int_19h 8y ago
  We've had a time when standards were at the forefront, between the death of the last browser monoculture, and the establishment of the current one. It was good while it lasted.
  - kkarakk 8y ago
    if you don't specify a timeframe you can't be contested and therefore your nostalgia reads like it is for a time that never existed except in your mind
    - sverhagen 8y ago
      Aren't they "obviously" talking about Internet Explorer's hegemony "then", Chrome's rise "now"?
    - mstade 8y ago
      Judging from this chart[1], definitely somewhere between 2008 (the x-axis starts at 2009, but if I recall correctly Chrome was released in 2008) and second half of 2012. Possibly the original comment was referring to a larger time span than this, but judging from the linked chart that's when Chrome was still on the up-and-up compared to IE. In my opinion though, this timeframe was 2008 to about 2014, when Google (and Microsoft) essentially strong armed Mozilla into accepting EME[2]. I'm not sure that's when the slippery slope really started, but it's definitely when I started believing there's a new boss in town – same as the old boss. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#/media/File:Web_browser_usage_share,_May_2017.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#/media/File:Web_... [2]: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-and-w3c-eme/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-missi...
      - SquareWheel 8y ago
dannyr 8y ago
I agree with you on Google's monopoly but imagine if every browser has to go through proposal process to release any feature? Everything will just stagnate. Browsers copy features from each other. If this is a useful feature, it would make its way to other browsers pretty soon.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Stagnation is not always bad. For one, it helps keep complexity down. We're at a point where building a browser is impossible unless you have literally millions and millions of dollars to invest. That is not good.
  - SquareWheel 8y ago
    If building from scratch maybe, but when was the last time a browser was built from scratch? Even Chromium was forked from WebKit.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      That's my point. The web is so complex that browser engines are becoming a monoculture. Even if you forked Chromium now, you'd need hundreds of engineers just to keep up with all the new things that are constantly added.
      - ummonk 8y ago
        Yeah, I was rather sad to see EdgeHTML go. Although I never used Edge, rendering engine diversity is good for the ecosystem.
      - kordlessagain 8y ago
        > new things that are constantly added By golly, that's the problem right there.
        fiddlerwoaroof 8y ago
SquareWheel 8y ago
Do you actually follow spec discussions, or are you just guessing? From what I have observed the Chrome, Firefox, and Safari teams are in constant communication. They discuss new features, implementation details, and potential pitfalls. Despite all the suggestions of "browser wars", they're actually very friendly and collaborative.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  I think he's right. SPDY and WebP both started as Chrome-only features, and the world has essentially been forced to adopt them. So far I think that's been a good think on balance because they are good technologies. But it is worrying how much power Google has in this space.
  - SquareWheel 8y ago
    SPDY was donated to the IETF for adoption into the HTTP/2 standard. Other browser vendors only implemented it at that time. WebP is a file format and doesn't fall into the normal standardization process. Browsers implement support for new file formats at their own behest.
    - xg15 8y ago
      Yes. After SPDY had already been implemented and shipped in Chrome.
      - kalmi10 8y ago
        It's not like interoperability suffered because of that. HTTP fallback was always there.
        martin_a 8y ago
        Nevertheless it's some kind of fait accompli, especially in a market with only three main actors. Where one actor can also start using the new "standard" overnight and break lots of services for people which are not using their browsers... You know what I mean. It's some kind of enforcing to have a monopoly.
todd3834 8y ago
That’s exactly what I would do in the same shoes I think. Proposals are cool and I understand why it is better for an open web etc… but getting features immediately is pretty cool too.
- josteink 8y ago
  But then they only work in one browser and that is massively uncool. So yeah, standards please. And not Googley “Comments? What do you mean ‘comments’? We’ve already shipped this and we’re not changing it, so you better follow suit”-standards.
pgeorgi 8y ago
web standards are descriptive not prescriptive, and have always been: nobody asked before adding the <blink> tag to their web browser, it was just added (and later removed) after it was used by more than one implementation and consensus was found how it's supposed to behave. For example, WebSQL died because there was only one implementation: implementations come before the standards.
- frobozz 8y ago
  Not strictly true. In the W3C process, a Working Draft can be written before any implementations. Even a CR doesn't need to have been realised. To progress to PR and Recommendation, it needs to have implementations. WHATWG is more descriptive, HTML 5 has been described as a collection of everything Hixie has seen somewhere on the web and thought cool.
  - pgeorgi 8y ago
    Not strictly true, okay. Still, it's nothing new that browser vendors just add the things they think may be useful and see what sticks (which then eventually ends up in some standard at some point like asm.js/WebAssembly - or fizzles out like NaCl). These days with vendor prefixes, polyfills and generally a focus on backward compatibility there's typically some care taken to not leave users of other browsers in the dust. That's very different from past efforts like, for example, ActiveX which made a full (but undocumented) Win32 environment part of the web browser design.
pexaizix 8y ago
Reading the comments on this post and all seems to be envy. While Chrome does useful stuff like this, Firefox progress in the web space is... eh... adding ads to the home page? Maybe Firefox should've went with a proposal on how to add ads into the browser, or on how to send all of your URL history to a third party. :^)

by _bxg1 8y ago

It seems like more and more, Google is leveraging their near-monopoly on web browsing to just skip the proposal process and do whatever they want without discussion.

est 8y ago

in this case it looked OK > Though existing HTML support for id and name attributes specifies the target element directly in the fragment, most other mime types make use of this x=y pattern in the fragment, such as Media Fragments (e.g. #track=audio&t=10,20), PDF (e.g. #page=12) or CSV (e.g. #row=4). fragments is already there but most pages do not have a clickable ID attribute. If Chrome could automatically provide one I think it's more convenient than F12 a devtool for links.

pjmlp 8y ago
IE 5 was also welcomed with joy when it arrived.
peteretep 8y ago
> in this case it looked OK That’s not really the point
- gammateam 8y ago
  I’m fine skiing down this slippery slope
detaro 8y ago
Although there already was a proposed standard by a W3C group for doing this, although it is a lot more complicated (with a bunch of variations, but even implementing one of those would be nice): https://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-states/#json-examples-converted-to-fragment-identifiers https://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-states/#json-examples-conver...

jonathankoren 8y ago

It’s almost as if Google is the new Microsoft!

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
- EGreg 8y ago
  Who are they embracing? They ARE a web based company, why extinguish web browsing?
  - ToFab123 8y ago
    With AMP they are trying to become the web.
    - SquareWheel 8y ago
      What does that even mean? AMP is built on WebComponents, which are an existing web standard. That's no less standard than anything else using custom elements.
      - gammateam 8y ago
        This guy AMPs
      - gcb0 8y ago
        amp is a self serving standard. Nowhere in the standard "higher search ranking on google inc" is mentioned as a must have feature. Yet it is the only feature anyone care about when discussing adoption.
        SquareWheel 8y ago
        If that were true (and I'm not so sure it is), then you'd blame the search team for letting it be a ranking factor. It has nothing to do with web standards.

throwaway415415 8y ago

Browsers have always done that

int_19h 8y ago
We've had a time when standards were at the forefront, between the death of the last browser monoculture, and the establishment of the current one. It was good while it lasted.
- kkarakk 8y ago
  if you don't specify a timeframe you can't be contested and therefore your nostalgia reads like it is for a time that never existed except in your mind
  - sverhagen 8y ago
    Aren't they "obviously" talking about Internet Explorer's hegemony "then", Chrome's rise "now"?
  - mstade 8y ago
    Judging from this chart[1], definitely somewhere between 2008 (the x-axis starts at 2009, but if I recall correctly Chrome was released in 2008) and second half of 2012. Possibly the original comment was referring to a larger time span than this, but judging from the linked chart that's when Chrome was still on the up-and-up compared to IE. In my opinion though, this timeframe was 2008 to about 2014, when Google (and Microsoft) essentially strong armed Mozilla into accepting EME[2]. I'm not sure that's when the slippery slope really started, but it's definitely when I started believing there's a new boss in town – same as the old boss. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#/media/File:Web_browser_usage_share,_May_2017.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#/media/File:Web_... [2]: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-and-w3c-eme/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-missi...
    - SquareWheel 8y ago

dannyr 8y ago

I agree with you on Google's monopoly but imagine if every browser has to go through proposal process to release any feature? Everything will just stagnate. Browsers copy features from each other. If this is a useful feature, it would make its way to other browsers pretty soon.

adrianN 8y ago
Stagnation is not always bad. For one, it helps keep complexity down. We're at a point where building a browser is impossible unless you have literally millions and millions of dollars to invest. That is not good.
- SquareWheel 8y ago
  If building from scratch maybe, but when was the last time a browser was built from scratch? Even Chromium was forked from WebKit.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    That's my point. The web is so complex that browser engines are becoming a monoculture. Even if you forked Chromium now, you'd need hundreds of engineers just to keep up with all the new things that are constantly added.
    - ummonk 8y ago
      Yeah, I was rather sad to see EdgeHTML go. Although I never used Edge, rendering engine diversity is good for the ecosystem.
    - kordlessagain 8y ago
      > new things that are constantly added By golly, that's the problem right there.
      - fiddlerwoaroof 8y ago

SquareWheel 8y ago

Do you actually follow spec discussions, or are you just guessing? From what I have observed the Chrome, Firefox, and Safari teams are in constant communication. They discuss new features, implementation details, and potential pitfalls. Despite all the suggestions of "browser wars", they're actually very friendly and collaborative.

IshKebab 8y ago
I think he's right. SPDY and WebP both started as Chrome-only features, and the world has essentially been forced to adopt them. So far I think that's been a good think on balance because they are good technologies. But it is worrying how much power Google has in this space.
- SquareWheel 8y ago
  SPDY was donated to the IETF for adoption into the HTTP/2 standard. Other browser vendors only implemented it at that time. WebP is a file format and doesn't fall into the normal standardization process. Browsers implement support for new file formats at their own behest.
  - xg15 8y ago
    Yes. After SPDY had already been implemented and shipped in Chrome.
    - kalmi10 8y ago
      It's not like interoperability suffered because of that. HTTP fallback was always there.
      - martin_a 8y ago
        Nevertheless it's some kind of fait accompli, especially in a market with only three main actors. Where one actor can also start using the new "standard" overnight and break lots of services for people which are not using their browsers... You know what I mean. It's some kind of enforcing to have a monopoly.

todd3834 8y ago

That’s exactly what I would do in the same shoes I think. Proposals are cool and I understand why it is better for an open web etc… but getting features immediately is pretty cool too.

josteink 8y ago
But then they only work in one browser and that is massively uncool. So yeah, standards please. And not Googley “Comments? What do you mean ‘comments’? We’ve already shipped this and we’re not changing it, so you better follow suit”-standards.

pgeorgi 8y ago

web standards are descriptive not prescriptive, and have always been: nobody asked before adding the <blink> tag to their web browser, it was just added (and later removed) after it was used by more than one implementation and consensus was found how it's supposed to behave. For example, WebSQL died because there was only one implementation: implementations come before the standards.

frobozz 8y ago
Not strictly true. In the W3C process, a Working Draft can be written before any implementations. Even a CR doesn't need to have been realised. To progress to PR and Recommendation, it needs to have implementations. WHATWG is more descriptive, HTML 5 has been described as a collection of everything Hixie has seen somewhere on the web and thought cool.
- pgeorgi 8y ago
  Not strictly true, okay. Still, it's nothing new that browser vendors just add the things they think may be useful and see what sticks (which then eventually ends up in some standard at some point like asm.js/WebAssembly - or fizzles out like NaCl). These days with vendor prefixes, polyfills and generally a focus on backward compatibility there's typically some care taken to not leave users of other browsers in the dust. That's very different from past efforts like, for example, ActiveX which made a full (but undocumented) Win32 environment part of the web browser design.

pexaizix 8y ago

Reading the comments on this post and all seems to be envy. While Chrome does useful stuff like this, Firefox progress in the web space is... eh... adding ads to the home page? Maybe Firefox should've went with a proposal on how to add ads into the browser, or on how to send all of your URL history to a third party. :^)