4 ms·

Domain name specific quirks? What in the world...

robin_reala 6y ago
Oh, WebKit are absolutely not the only people doing this. Opera used to with their Presto engine, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a similar list in Gecko, though I can’t find it now. At the end of the day, this is the only way that non-Chrome browsers can meet Google’s hegemony, unless they give up and adopt Chromium itself. The opportunity cost of switching is too low for browser manufacturers no to have these workarounds; if a site is broken for a user, then they’ll change browser.
- sdflhasjd 6y ago
  Yes, it is a real shame, but then again, a lot of these sites are made by reasonably big companies. I'm sure trello and such could fix whatever these input quirks are. Then there's autoplay specific behaviour on facebook, twitter and netflix. Is this really a google hegemony thing, or is this leniency that other sites don't get? I'm just trying to see if there's similar examples in Blink & Gecko right now.
  - robin_reala 6y ago
    I work for a big company. There have been plenty of outstanding bugs in my company’s sites and apps, because the people that care aren’t in teams that own the systems with bugs in, or aren’t in a position to have their voices heard, and that’s before the hydra of ”legacy software” rears its many-consultanted head. (at least in my org we’re generally better at this now)
  - erichurkman 6y ago
    > if (host == "trailers.apple.com") > return true; Even Apple themselves are not immune.
    - abrowne 6y ago
      And icloud.com: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/21c441ed8ddc83f3e24ad553103b9232756a1321/Source/WebCore/page/Quirks.cpp#L255 https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/21c441ed8ddc83f3e24ad5...
- dastx 6y ago
  > At the end of the day, this is the only way that non-Chrome browsers can meet Google’s hegemony Except these quirks include a whole lot more than just Google. Some of the domains in there: 1. nytimes 2. twitter 3. ralphlauren 4. baidu 5. warbyparker 6. nfl 7. gizmodo 8. microsoft I'm not sure what each different piece of code does but there is many more domains in there.
  - robin_reala 6y ago
    By Google’s hegemony, I was talking about developers only testing in Google-developed rendering engines, not their web properties.
    - dastx 6y ago
      Aah! Pardon me. That makes more sense.
- ksec 6y ago
  Oh Yes, As it was in Firefox when they have IE Quirks. And I am now leaning towards may be it is the standard's fault, not the implementation.
- gsnedders 6y ago
  > Oh, WebKit are absolutely not the only people doing this. Opera used to with their Presto engine, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a similar list in Gecko, though I can’t find it now. This is the last (shipped) Presto one for desktop: https://web.archive.org/web/20190204112249if_/https://github.com/operasoftware/browserjs/blob/master/desktop/browserjs-12.10.js https://web.archive.org/web/20190204112249if_/https://github... Perhaps more surprisingly, this continued into Chromium-based Opera (though archive.org seems not to have that, but that's the OPRdesktop directory in that repo); this was primarily down to sites with a UA string allowlist, and having to lie to get in. (Chromium-based Edge also has a means to override the UA string.)
jonnypotty 6y ago
My thoughts exactly. So fragile. Im so grateful I don't have to do web dev any more, what a mess.
livre 6y ago
This isn't new, I remember Opera (versions 12 and older) used to come with a privileged .js file that would apply patches to websites. It was used mostly to fix those that blocked Opera when they detected its user agent or popular websites that ran code using proprietary functions or css properties (things that only Chrome or Internet Explorer implemented but weren't part of the standard).
shay_ker 6y ago
How do these domain-specific quirks get into WebKit? Is it advocated by the companies? By the users? By the devs? I'm just curious how these changes actually make it to millions of people's browsers
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  I’d suspect this is driven more by using those sites as internal test cases. Every browser vendor since Firefox broke IE’s total domination has had a “don't break the web” priority to some extent. Using large scale real world examples to validate that has the added bonus of revealing cases where you did, in fact, break a significant (by usage) portion of the web.

Oh, WebKit are absolutely not the only people doing this. Opera used to with their Presto engine, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a similar list in Gecko, though I can’t find it now. At the end of the day, this is the only way that non-Chrome browsers can meet Google’s hegemony, unless they give up and adopt Chromium itself. The opportunity cost of switching is too low for browser manufacturers no to have these workarounds; if a site is broken for a user, then they’ll change browser.

sdflhasjd 6y ago
Yes, it is a real shame, but then again, a lot of these sites are made by reasonably big companies. I'm sure trello and such could fix whatever these input quirks are. Then there's autoplay specific behaviour on facebook, twitter and netflix. Is this really a google hegemony thing, or is this leniency that other sites don't get? I'm just trying to see if there's similar examples in Blink & Gecko right now.
- robin_reala 6y ago
  I work for a big company. There have been plenty of outstanding bugs in my company’s sites and apps, because the people that care aren’t in teams that own the systems with bugs in, or aren’t in a position to have their voices heard, and that’s before the hydra of ”legacy software” rears its many-consultanted head. (at least in my org we’re generally better at this now)
- erichurkman 6y ago
  > if (host == "trailers.apple.com") > return true; Even Apple themselves are not immune.
  - abrowne 6y ago
    And icloud.com: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/21c441ed8ddc83f3e24ad553103b9232756a1321/Source/WebCore/page/Quirks.cpp#L255 https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/21c441ed8ddc83f3e24ad5...
dastx 6y ago
> At the end of the day, this is the only way that non-Chrome browsers can meet Google’s hegemony Except these quirks include a whole lot more than just Google. Some of the domains in there: 1. nytimes 2. twitter 3. ralphlauren 4. baidu 5. warbyparker 6. nfl 7. gizmodo 8. microsoft I'm not sure what each different piece of code does but there is many more domains in there.
- robin_reala 6y ago
  By Google’s hegemony, I was talking about developers only testing in Google-developed rendering engines, not their web properties.
  - dastx 6y ago
    Aah! Pardon me. That makes more sense.
ksec 6y ago
Oh Yes, As it was in Firefox when they have IE Quirks. And I am now leaning towards may be it is the standard's fault, not the implementation.
gsnedders 6y ago
> Oh, WebKit are absolutely not the only people doing this. Opera used to with their Presto engine, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a similar list in Gecko, though I can’t find it now. This is the last (shipped) Presto one for desktop: https://web.archive.org/web/20190204112249if_/https://github.com/operasoftware/browserjs/blob/master/desktop/browserjs-12.10.js https://web.archive.org/web/20190204112249if_/https://github... Perhaps more surprisingly, this continued into Chromium-based Opera (though archive.org seems not to have that, but that's the OPRdesktop directory in that repo); this was primarily down to sites with a UA string allowlist, and having to lie to get in. (Chromium-based Edge also has a means to override the UA string.)

jonnypotty 6y ago

My thoughts exactly. So fragile. Im so grateful I don't have to do web dev any more, what a mess.

livre 6y ago

This isn't new, I remember Opera (versions 12 and older) used to come with a privileged .js file that would apply patches to websites. It was used mostly to fix those that blocked Opera when they detected its user agent or popular websites that ran code using proprietary functions or css properties (things that only Chrome or Internet Explorer implemented but weren't part of the standard).

shay_ker 6y ago

How do these domain-specific quirks get into WebKit? Is it advocated by the companies? By the users? By the devs? I'm just curious how these changes actually make it to millions of people's browsers

eyelidlessness 6y ago
I’d suspect this is driven more by using those sites as internal test cases. Every browser vendor since Firefox broke IE’s total domination has had a “don't break the web” priority to some extent. Using large scale real world examples to validate that has the added bonus of revealing cases where you did, in fact, break a significant (by usage) portion of the web.