3 ms·

Dirty of google to hide behind “web.dev” and not make it front and center clear this is a google property.

lrem 6y ago
Seems to mention Google more than on Youtube. Both use Google accounts, as seen in top right corner, but only web.dev has a footer mentioning Google.
- lupire 6y ago
  Youtube is very old and has its own reputation and a made-up trademark name. It's not trying to hijack the entire concept of a generic idea like "web dev" that existed before Google existed.
hnbad 6y ago
I kept thinking that web.dev is the same as webplatform.org, which was positioned as a community-driven replacement for Mozilla's MDN Web Docs and heavily pushed by Google at the time. Turns out webplatform.org was discontinued some time in 2015 and put up a notice pointing people at the MDN Web Docs. Then in 2017 Mozilla announced most of the key players (including Google) would now support the MDN Web Docs[0], which still seems to be true except they fired the entire MDN team in 2020[1]. It seems the advisory meetings are still happening and someone is maintaining MDN, but with Mozilla essentially only existing because Google continues to pay the bills, its future seems a lot less certain now. Meanwhile web.dev makes no mention of MDN and instead mixes discussion of Google's proprietary "experimental" features and Chrome-specific behavior with general advice on "building better websites", duplicating some of the content already covered by the MDN Web Docs' guides section (except this gives them opportunities to cross-market their own interests while also not discussing support of features in other browsers). I don't think Google is hiding who's behind as the footer literally has the Google Developers logo in it. They are however not acknowledging anything other than Chrome even exists and heavily blurring the lines between Chrome or Google-specific features and stable web standards. Coupled with certain public Google developers continuously chanting "use the platform" while criticizing people for using other web frameworks instead of custom elements, this certainly creates an impression of deception and dishonesty. [0]: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/10/18/mozilla-brings-microsoft-google-w3c-samsung-together-create-cross-browser-documentation-mdn/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/10/18/mozilla-brings-micr... [1]: https://www.fastcompany.com/90539632/mozilla-vows-mdn-isnt-going-anywhere-as-layoffs-cause-panic-among-developers https://www.fastcompany.com/90539632/mozilla-vows-mdn-isnt-g...
arthurcolle 6y ago
They own the entire .dev gTLD namespace - they aren't hiding it, but it's probably not common knowledge. I am not defending Google behavior, I have no dog in this fight, just sharing. In fact, there was a weird behavior I detected inadvertently last year 2 employers ago where I couldn't load any .dev public internet sites due to preloaded rules that hadn't been updated since before the .dev gTLD was publicly available. Some would load, and others (web.dev in particular) wouldn't load. Anyways yeah this sucks, it seems that any new advancements in web related technologies that could enable new privacy measures are just side stepped by the dark wizards out of Mountain View...
- eloisant 6y ago
  They might operate it but anyone can register a .dev domain. So being on that TLD doesn't make it obvious that it's Google.

lrem 6y ago

Seems to mention Google more than on Youtube. Both use Google accounts, as seen in top right corner, but only web.dev has a footer mentioning Google.

lupire 6y ago
Youtube is very old and has its own reputation and a made-up trademark name. It's not trying to hijack the entire concept of a generic idea like "web dev" that existed before Google existed.

hnbad 6y ago

I kept thinking that web.dev is the same as webplatform.org, which was positioned as a community-driven replacement for Mozilla's MDN Web Docs and heavily pushed by Google at the time. Turns out webplatform.org was discontinued some time in 2015 and put up a notice pointing people at the MDN Web Docs. Then in 2017 Mozilla announced most of the key players (including Google) would now support the MDN Web Docs[0], which still seems to be true except they fired the entire MDN team in 2020[1]. It seems the advisory meetings are still happening and someone is maintaining MDN, but with Mozilla essentially only existing because Google continues to pay the bills, its future seems a lot less certain now. Meanwhile web.dev makes no mention of MDN and instead mixes discussion of Google's proprietary "experimental" features and Chrome-specific behavior with general advice on "building better websites", duplicating some of the content already covered by the MDN Web Docs' guides section (except this gives them opportunities to cross-market their own interests while also not discussing support of features in other browsers). I don't think Google is hiding who's behind as the footer literally has the Google Developers logo in it. They are however not acknowledging anything other than Chrome even exists and heavily blurring the lines between Chrome or Google-specific features and stable web standards. Coupled with certain public Google developers continuously chanting "use the platform" while criticizing people for using other web frameworks instead of custom elements, this certainly creates an impression of deception and dishonesty. [0]: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/10/18/mozilla-brings-microsoft-google-w3c-samsung-together-create-cross-browser-documentation-mdn/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/10/18/mozilla-brings-micr... [1]: https://www.fastcompany.com/90539632/mozilla-vows-mdn-isnt-going-anywhere-as-layoffs-cause-panic-among-developers https://www.fastcompany.com/90539632/mozilla-vows-mdn-isnt-g...

arthurcolle 6y ago

They own the entire .dev gTLD namespace - they aren't hiding it, but it's probably not common knowledge. I am not defending Google behavior, I have no dog in this fight, just sharing. In fact, there was a weird behavior I detected inadvertently last year 2 employers ago where I couldn't load any .dev public internet sites due to preloaded rules that hadn't been updated since before the .dev gTLD was publicly available. Some would load, and others (web.dev in particular) wouldn't load. Anyways yeah this sucks, it seems that any new advancements in web related technologies that could enable new privacy measures are just side stepped by the dark wizards out of Mountain View...

eloisant 6y ago
They might operate it but anyone can register a .dev domain. So being on that TLD doesn't make it obvious that it's Google.