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That's not really how it worked pre-2010 when IE had the monopoly. And for all of Chrome (and Google's) faults, it does seem to be reasonably standards- compli

That's not really how it worked pre-2010 when IE had the monopoly. And for all of Chrome (and Google's) faults, it does seem to be reasonably standards- compliant and even open to experimentation. If they want to spend some of their piles of cash developing new features that other browsers can then adopt and then standardise, I don't see the problem. If developers choose to use Chrome-only features and their pages break on other browsers, that's on them

zaarn 7y ago
When IE had a monopoly it was bad because Microsoft made a shitty webbrowser and everyone built websites for IE. Even today I have devices which are "best viewed on IE6", thanks to modern browsers they still tend to work somewhat. Chrome will not be bad because it's a shitty browser, it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. It's not the developers fault directly but they inherently support an abusive vendor-user relationship. Everyone who doesn't see that is just a Google-apologist.
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  > it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. Again, not the way it worked with IE 1-8 > Everyone who doesn't see that is just a Google-apologist. Well I don't and I'm not.
  - zaarn 7y ago
    And again, that's what Google is already doing, I'm not saying they're doing the exact same things that happened with IE1-8 but a browser monopoly is still equally bad regardless of how badly a browser is maintained.
    - cookie_monsta 7y ago
      Oh, absolutely - I'm not arguing in favour of browser monopolies. I'm saying that browser standards aren't a popularity contest. You can have the most popular browser in the world but still not be able to strongarm your way into compliance. Remember attachEvent?
      - zaarn 7y ago
        Well, those are to some extend exceptions, if a browser has major marketshare, then any change implemented will have to be implemented by others. Google doesn't have to stop implementing them at all, no matter the response from devs.
scarface74 7y ago
By 2010, at least in the US, it had to work on mobile. See all of the websites that abandoned Flash.
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  I'm not sure I see the relevance of this. Could you elaborate?
  - scarface74 7y ago
    That IE didn’t set the standards anymore by 2010. By then, you had to be compatible with iPhones and by the end of the year iPads. And it wasn’t big daddy government that killed IE’s stranglehold....
    - cookie_monsta 7y ago
      There was a brief time when IE and FF were about even. Around the time when a lot of developers just gave up and stopped supporting IE6 and IE's reputation never really recovered (and rightfully so). Shortly after, Chrome hit the lead and never looked back. Flash was already falling out of favour as html5 emerged, making it irrelevant. iPads and iPhones were influential in the birth of the mobile-first philosophy but not in the decline of IE. IE never really set standards, in fact the big complaint about it always was how non- compliant it was. Of course the government didn't kill IE. It died because of arrogance and short sightedness.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        Flash was all the rage until people started browsing more on mobile. Not only was Flash “not out of favor” when the iPhone was introduced, it was a big talking point that Flash didn’t run on iPhones and later iPads. It was a marketing point that Android could run Flash (badly) until everyone just gave up.
        cookie_monsta 7y ago
Santosh83 7y ago
You will by definition be standards compliant if you are the main mover behind the eternally moving standard. Chrome powers the living standard. Other browser engines follow.
- scarface74 7y ago
  So, Apple follows all of Google’s standards?
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  So Google powers WHATWG and Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla just tag along?
  - Santosh83 7y ago
    They cooperate for now, but the balance of power and momentum is heavily in favour of Google as it stands. This will only matter when one of the others wants to hold out on some critical feature and find that they effectively can't if they don't want to see their already minor market share plummet. Apple though do have some clout since they own the entire vertical...
    - cookie_monsta 7y ago
      So we have gone from Google powering the living standard to the prediction that they will be able to dominate it at some hypothetical point in the future. Well, maybe. Who's to say? But if we're theorising, I'd say that Google probably learnt a lot from IE's demise and most likely sees the advantage of making sure that the web dev community at least does not actively hate them.
      - Santosh83 7y ago
        Yes but we're talking about end user hostile behaviour from Google. The web dev community will not directly hate them for that...

zaarn 7y ago

When IE had a monopoly it was bad because Microsoft made a shitty webbrowser and everyone built websites for IE. Even today I have devices which are "best viewed on IE6", thanks to modern browsers they still tend to work somewhat. Chrome will not be bad because it's a shitty browser, it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. It's not the developers fault directly but they inherently support an abusive vendor-user relationship. Everyone who doesn't see that is just a Google-apologist.

cookie_monsta 7y ago
> it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. Again, not the way it worked with IE 1-8 > Everyone who doesn't see that is just a Google-apologist. Well I don't and I'm not.
- zaarn 7y ago
  And again, that's what Google is already doing, I'm not saying they're doing the exact same things that happened with IE1-8 but a browser monopoly is still equally bad regardless of how badly a browser is maintained.
  - cookie_monsta 7y ago
    Oh, absolutely - I'm not arguing in favour of browser monopolies. I'm saying that browser standards aren't a popularity contest. You can have the most popular browser in the world but still not be able to strongarm your way into compliance. Remember attachEvent?
    - zaarn 7y ago
      Well, those are to some extend exceptions, if a browser has major marketshare, then any change implemented will have to be implemented by others. Google doesn't have to stop implementing them at all, no matter the response from devs.

scarface74 7y ago

By 2010, at least in the US, it had to work on mobile. See all of the websites that abandoned Flash.

cookie_monsta 7y ago
I'm not sure I see the relevance of this. Could you elaborate?
- scarface74 7y ago
  That IE didn’t set the standards anymore by 2010. By then, you had to be compatible with iPhones and by the end of the year iPads. And it wasn’t big daddy government that killed IE’s stranglehold....
  - cookie_monsta 7y ago
    There was a brief time when IE and FF were about even. Around the time when a lot of developers just gave up and stopped supporting IE6 and IE's reputation never really recovered (and rightfully so). Shortly after, Chrome hit the lead and never looked back. Flash was already falling out of favour as html5 emerged, making it irrelevant. iPads and iPhones were influential in the birth of the mobile-first philosophy but not in the decline of IE. IE never really set standards, in fact the big complaint about it always was how non- compliant it was. Of course the government didn't kill IE. It died because of arrogance and short sightedness.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Flash was all the rage until people started browsing more on mobile. Not only was Flash “not out of favor” when the iPhone was introduced, it was a big talking point that Flash didn’t run on iPhones and later iPads. It was a marketing point that Android could run Flash (badly) until everyone just gave up.
      - cookie_monsta 7y ago

Santosh83 7y ago

You will by definition be standards compliant if you are the main mover behind the eternally moving standard. Chrome powers the living standard. Other browser engines follow.

scarface74 7y ago
So, Apple follows all of Google’s standards?
cookie_monsta 7y ago
So Google powers WHATWG and Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla just tag along?
- Santosh83 7y ago
  They cooperate for now, but the balance of power and momentum is heavily in favour of Google as it stands. This will only matter when one of the others wants to hold out on some critical feature and find that they effectively can't if they don't want to see their already minor market share plummet. Apple though do have some clout since they own the entire vertical...
  - cookie_monsta 7y ago
    So we have gone from Google powering the living standard to the prediction that they will be able to dominate it at some hypothetical point in the future. Well, maybe. Who's to say? But if we're theorising, I'd say that Google probably learnt a lot from IE's demise and most likely sees the advantage of making sure that the web dev community at least does not actively hate them.
    - Santosh83 7y ago
      Yes but we're talking about end user hostile behaviour from Google. The web dev community will not directly hate them for that...