4 ms·

no, we need it; or we will go back to a fancy version of Internet Explorer 6 (that is, chrome browser): proprietary technology implementation, by a top player,

by kome 8y ago

no, we need it; or we will go back to a fancy version of Internet Explorer 6 (that is, chrome browser): proprietary technology implementation, by a top player, against any standard... and spying on users (but that's new, I don't think IE 6 was that vicious). Web monoculture make the web worse for everybody.

nolok 8y ago
It's funny, I see this comparison a lot and the people using it don't see how it misses the mark: the reason (the majority of tech) people hated SO MUCH on IE6 was not because it was proprietary, but because it was static and didn't bring get any advance, thus blocking the web's progress. Chrome doesn't have that issue, at worst you can claim it gives too much power to Google on decision about where the web goes, but not that it keeps it from progressing. It was also not respecting the standards but only after a while (at release it was at the forefront of it), and that is also not a problem that Chrome can relate to. I say that as someone who uses Chrome, enjoy it, but would also prefer if we didn't go back to a single engine being supported on the web (and I switched back to firefox on mobile, because of chrome lacks of support for ad blocking there). By confusing what the fight is about and trying to make it about what it's not, I fear you make some people like me ignore it.
- close04 8y ago
  Chrome is just as bad but for different reasons. And perhaps even more dangerous (like slowly eroding privacy, or shaping the browser around Google’s revenue generating services). I think the analogy stands and the damage is similar in magnitude.
  - kowdermeister 8y ago
    Have you used IE6 and lower? Do you know what a CSS hack is?
    - close04 8y ago
      Was “for different reasons” too unclear? It’s right at the beginning of the comment. Different reasons but the impact is still dangerous. For example IE6 was not reporting my location to MS despite me turning the option off. Just because some people are ok with that doesn’t make it less of a problem. It just makes it a different (bad) one. And in the passive aggressiveness [0] of your comment you didn’t even think that there are far better reasons why IE6 sucked. If feels random and based less on long term use experience. You write as if you’d be ok with Chrome stabbing you in the eye as long as it’s not a CSS hack, the single reference issue all browsers are benchmarked against. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - kowdermeister 8y ago
        I've read it and I think it's way overblown. All I care about is solid support for standards and Chrome shines it that. I picked them because I could test if you actually experienced it. Chrome at the moment is the best we have but it does come with strings attached. It has different problems indeed, surprise surprise, however I don't think that's that a big issue at all.
        close04 8y ago
        > All I care about [...] You should have started with that instead of the jab. Not only would it have been clear that it’s a personal opinion not a matter of fact (Chrome is better for me) but it would have also saved you the time of coming back later with the real single biggest issue of IE: standards. The issues Chrome pose for most people right now are real. You don’t care about them for your personal reasons but disqualifying them because they’re not yours is very dismissive. You never know when your interests change.
        DCoder 8y ago
        > All I care about is solid support for standards and Chrome shines it that. Except for cases when it doesn't feel like supporting the standard in question, or it claims their support is sufficient. A recent example could be support for <input autocomplete="..."> [0]. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ar1qj1//egl52wk/?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ar1qj1//egl52w...
- sametmax 8y ago
  Progression != improvement. When ad blockers won't work, when you get DRM everywhere and trackers will be embedded in the browser, the tech will have progressed. Yet it will not be the progress you want to live. It's like if suddenly you had only one car maker and say "it will be easier to design infrastructure for it". Yes, it will be. But it also mean you won't get innovation for you, only for the car maker. For google that would mean pushing techs serving the ad and data collection business of course. But also in general, that would mean building for big companies. Adopting standards that are mostly beneficial to people that have the money to buy patents, setup many CDN, have high end engineers, invest in specialized hardware, etc.
  - nolok 8y ago
    None of what you say corresponds to what I said. "Chrome being a monopoly is bad because X" and I say there are lots of issue with only Chrome remaining but not X, it doesn't apply to Chrome. You answer by saying "but there is Y, and W, and Z, and ..." which is basically my point: no need to focus on what is not the issue.
- mjw1007 8y ago
  IE6 wasn't at the forefront of standards compliance when it was released. Mozilla (then at 0.9.x) and Internet Explorer 5 for Mac were both significantly better.
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  >It's funny, I see this comparison a lot and the people using it don't see how it misses the mark ... You seem to be missing the link between monopoly and stagnation though. IE wasn't always stagnant. It brought us XMLHTTPRequest for instance. I think the debate has to be about whether or not Chromium being open source changes the equation.
  - nolok 8y ago
    IE6 era's Microsoft had an interest in the web stagnating, while Google doesn't. If anything, they used their position to push forward new things that others wanted to slow down.
    - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
      It appears to me that Google is pushing forward some things while slowing down others. Obviously, Google will never be at the forefront of limiting what advertisers can do. My biggest worry with a Chrome quasi monopoly would be the erosion of browser making competence and financial resources outside of Google. So whenever Google's vested interests clash with what users want, there would be no one left to step up. Chromium would be open source, but only Google employees would know the source well enough to do anything with it. It's a worry. I'm not saying it's the same as with a closed source IE back then.
- kome 8y ago
  I think you are wrong, or at least, I don't share your impression at all... I was there when IE 6 was a thing, and no, nobody was complaining that IE was too static. That wasn't the main reason at all. One of the main problems is that it was too dynamic, but in a proprietary and unsafe way (ActiveX). Read, for example, this article from 2002, when "Phoenix" (aka Firefox) was launched: https://www.geek.com/news/mozilla-launches-new-faster-browser-phoenix-550830/ https://www.geek.com/news/mozilla-launches-new-faster-browse... IE was pushed down the throat of everybody, and the main consumer complaints was "it's bloated". For developers instead, the craze of the day was to pass the Acid test: we are talking about CSS implementation. We are talking about open standards. Open standards where the main concerns for developers: http://davidnaylor.org/blog/2005/04/web-standards-acid2-test/ http://davidnaylor.org/blog/2005/04/web-standards-acid2-test... Acid 2 and Acid 3 where a the main thing during the browsers wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars). And they were ALL about standards.
afiori 8y ago
It is fair to point out that the negative effect of a google monopoly would be quite different from what happened with IE6
- buran77 8y ago
  The problems IE6 had are vastly different from the problems Chrome presents. But I would argue the Chrome's are potentially worse. IE6 was a big problem mostly for developers who were perhaps better equipped to deal with them. Chrome not only has the chance to become the "singl;e browser" (if it's not already there) and direct the web wherever but it also poses problems directly to the users who are most definitely not equipped to handle them. I see this as a much bigger issue than IE ever had. It's not technical so a simple patch in your web app won't fix it.

by kome 8y ago

nolok 8y ago

It's funny, I see this comparison a lot and the people using it don't see how it misses the mark: the reason (the majority of tech) people hated SO MUCH on IE6 was not because it was proprietary, but because it was static and didn't bring get any advance, thus blocking the web's progress. Chrome doesn't have that issue, at worst you can claim it gives too much power to Google on decision about where the web goes, but not that it keeps it from progressing. It was also not respecting the standards but only after a while (at release it was at the forefront of it), and that is also not a problem that Chrome can relate to. I say that as someone who uses Chrome, enjoy it, but would also prefer if we didn't go back to a single engine being supported on the web (and I switched back to firefox on mobile, because of chrome lacks of support for ad blocking there). By confusing what the fight is about and trying to make it about what it's not, I fear you make some people like me ignore it.

close04 8y ago
Chrome is just as bad but for different reasons. And perhaps even more dangerous (like slowly eroding privacy, or shaping the browser around Google’s revenue generating services). I think the analogy stands and the damage is similar in magnitude.
- kowdermeister 8y ago
  Have you used IE6 and lower? Do you know what a CSS hack is?
  - close04 8y ago
    Was “for different reasons” too unclear? It’s right at the beginning of the comment. Different reasons but the impact is still dangerous. For example IE6 was not reporting my location to MS despite me turning the option off. Just because some people are ok with that doesn’t make it less of a problem. It just makes it a different (bad) one. And in the passive aggressiveness [0] of your comment you didn’t even think that there are far better reasons why IE6 sucked. If feels random and based less on long term use experience. You write as if you’d be ok with Chrome stabbing you in the eye as long as it’s not a CSS hack, the single reference issue all browsers are benchmarked against. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - kowdermeister 8y ago
      I've read it and I think it's way overblown. All I care about is solid support for standards and Chrome shines it that. I picked them because I could test if you actually experienced it. Chrome at the moment is the best we have but it does come with strings attached. It has different problems indeed, surprise surprise, however I don't think that's that a big issue at all.
      - close04 8y ago
        > All I care about [...] You should have started with that instead of the jab. Not only would it have been clear that it’s a personal opinion not a matter of fact (Chrome is better for me) but it would have also saved you the time of coming back later with the real single biggest issue of IE: standards. The issues Chrome pose for most people right now are real. You don’t care about them for your personal reasons but disqualifying them because they’re not yours is very dismissive. You never know when your interests change.
      - DCoder 8y ago
        > All I care about is solid support for standards and Chrome shines it that. Except for cases when it doesn't feel like supporting the standard in question, or it claims their support is sufficient. A recent example could be support for <input autocomplete="..."> [0]. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ar1qj1//egl52wk/?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ar1qj1//egl52w...
sametmax 8y ago
Progression != improvement. When ad blockers won't work, when you get DRM everywhere and trackers will be embedded in the browser, the tech will have progressed. Yet it will not be the progress you want to live. It's like if suddenly you had only one car maker and say "it will be easier to design infrastructure for it". Yes, it will be. But it also mean you won't get innovation for you, only for the car maker. For google that would mean pushing techs serving the ad and data collection business of course. But also in general, that would mean building for big companies. Adopting standards that are mostly beneficial to people that have the money to buy patents, setup many CDN, have high end engineers, invest in specialized hardware, etc.
- nolok 8y ago
  None of what you say corresponds to what I said. "Chrome being a monopoly is bad because X" and I say there are lots of issue with only Chrome remaining but not X, it doesn't apply to Chrome. You answer by saying "but there is Y, and W, and Z, and ..." which is basically my point: no need to focus on what is not the issue.
mjw1007 8y ago
IE6 wasn't at the forefront of standards compliance when it was released. Mozilla (then at 0.9.x) and Internet Explorer 5 for Mac were both significantly better.
fauigerzigerk 8y ago
>It's funny, I see this comparison a lot and the people using it don't see how it misses the mark ... You seem to be missing the link between monopoly and stagnation though. IE wasn't always stagnant. It brought us XMLHTTPRequest for instance. I think the debate has to be about whether or not Chromium being open source changes the equation.
- nolok 8y ago
  IE6 era's Microsoft had an interest in the web stagnating, while Google doesn't. If anything, they used their position to push forward new things that others wanted to slow down.
  - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
    It appears to me that Google is pushing forward some things while slowing down others. Obviously, Google will never be at the forefront of limiting what advertisers can do. My biggest worry with a Chrome quasi monopoly would be the erosion of browser making competence and financial resources outside of Google. So whenever Google's vested interests clash with what users want, there would be no one left to step up. Chromium would be open source, but only Google employees would know the source well enough to do anything with it. It's a worry. I'm not saying it's the same as with a closed source IE back then.
kome 8y ago
I think you are wrong, or at least, I don't share your impression at all... I was there when IE 6 was a thing, and no, nobody was complaining that IE was too static. That wasn't the main reason at all. One of the main problems is that it was too dynamic, but in a proprietary and unsafe way (ActiveX). Read, for example, this article from 2002, when "Phoenix" (aka Firefox) was launched: https://www.geek.com/news/mozilla-launches-new-faster-browser-phoenix-550830/ https://www.geek.com/news/mozilla-launches-new-faster-browse... IE was pushed down the throat of everybody, and the main consumer complaints was "it's bloated". For developers instead, the craze of the day was to pass the Acid test: we are talking about CSS implementation. We are talking about open standards. Open standards where the main concerns for developers: http://davidnaylor.org/blog/2005/04/web-standards-acid2-test/ http://davidnaylor.org/blog/2005/04/web-standards-acid2-test... Acid 2 and Acid 3 where a the main thing during the browsers wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars). And they were ALL about standards.

afiori 8y ago

It is fair to point out that the negative effect of a google monopoly would be quite different from what happened with IE6

buran77 8y ago
The problems IE6 had are vastly different from the problems Chrome presents. But I would argue the Chrome's are potentially worse. IE6 was a big problem mostly for developers who were perhaps better equipped to deal with them. Chrome not only has the chance to become the "singl;e browser" (if it's not already there) and direct the web wherever but it also poses problems directly to the users who are most definitely not equipped to handle them. I see this as a much bigger issue than IE ever had. It's not technical so a simple patch in your web app won't fix it.