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I think the problem is the lack of deprecation on the web. New API’s get added and over time it becomes effectively impossible to build a browser that supports

by Joeri 5y ago

I think the problem is the lack of deprecation on the web. New API’s get added and over time it becomes effectively impossible to build a browser that supports all the API’s. For a while you could do it if you were a big enough corporation, but now even those are throwing in the towel and joining google. If we want more competition in the browser landscape, we need to start deprecating web API’s, make it feasible for a small group of people to build a fully functional browser again. We can still use chromium for the legacy web. Perhaps with some kind of browser engine plugin standard so that we can use different engines for different pages.

zeptonix 5y ago
Sure, let's transform everything into an endless abyss of "this is now deprecated" popup/console warnings. Just like we did with cookie popups. So we have more browsers that all support different things and partially support X% of things and then don't support (1-X)% of others. I'm not a fan either of Google abusing the clout they have with Chromium to force stuff down everyone's throat but there's no way these days a small group of people can build a browser. And there really shouldn't be either.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
What web APIs should be deprecated, in your opinion?
dmitriid 5y ago
The problem is backwards compatibility. If you deprecate something, huge swaths of the web are just gone. And we can't just use an older browser version for the older web. It means you have to maintain two browsers now. At the very least you'll need to patch security vulnerabilities and you have to make sure they work on new OS versions. It's a conundrum, and I don't have an idea how to solve it :)
- accountaway025 5y ago
  It seems to me that, over the last 5 years, a giant round of deprecation took place, and caused swaths of (older) clients to be gone from the Web: more and more servers have stopped supporting older secure transports (SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0). Because of that my original Samsung Galaxy S and iPad Mini have very little use these days, beside acting as alarm clocks. As is the case in politics, the security trump card will win over most arguments and all-too-subtle counterpoints in the "web space", too.

by Joeri 5y ago

zeptonix 5y ago

Sure, let's transform everything into an endless abyss of "this is now deprecated" popup/console warnings. Just like we did with cookie popups. So we have more browsers that all support different things and partially support X% of things and then don't support (1-X)% of others. I'm not a fan either of Google abusing the clout they have with Chromium to force stuff down everyone's throat but there's no way these days a small group of people can build a browser. And there really shouldn't be either.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

What web APIs should be deprecated, in your opinion?

dmitriid 5y ago

The problem is backwards compatibility. If you deprecate something, huge swaths of the web are just gone. And we can't just use an older browser version for the older web. It means you have to maintain two browsers now. At the very least you'll need to patch security vulnerabilities and you have to make sure they work on new OS versions. It's a conundrum, and I don't have an idea how to solve it :)

accountaway025 5y ago
It seems to me that, over the last 5 years, a giant round of deprecation took place, and caused swaths of (older) clients to be gone from the Web: more and more servers have stopped supporting older secure transports (SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0). Because of that my original Samsung Galaxy S and iPad Mini have very little use these days, beside acting as alarm clocks. As is the case in politics, the security trump card will win over most arguments and all-too-subtle counterpoints in the "web space", too.