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It appears the author works for Microsoft, a trillion dollar company that gave up trying to compete against Google and finally just started bundling a Chrome fo

by dwaite 4y ago

It appears the author works for Microsoft, a trillion dollar company that gave up trying to compete against Google and finally just started bundling a Chrome fork.

CyberNoodle 4y ago
Actually before that he worked at Google. He has made it his life mission to get chromium everywhere.
- jacobolus 4y ago
  Before that he made the Dojo JavaScript library (jQuery precursor / competitor). Alex Russell’s position has always been that web developers (especially library authors) need as many browser features as possible to help them build the most flexible / capable web applications possible. He has consistently pushed for browsers to ship new features ASAP, with the idea that developers can paper over the differences or work around a buggy API, but can’t turn nothing into something. My impression is that he joined Google because he thought that was the best way to further that pre-established goal; it’s not fair to say that he’s just promoting this because he thinks it is in Google/Microsoft/Chrome’s interest. By contrast, Safari developers’ position has long been that new browser features should be carefully evaluated and then implemented at leisure, because this is a long game and we don’t need rush jobs. Their focus is more on client-side resource use (it’s shocking how far behind Chrome is on this one), correctness of the features they do decide to implement, performance, and user privacy (Google’s whole business model is ubiquitous surveillance). These two positions are both defensible, but are at odds with each-other. For Safari developers, Chrome trying to ram big piles of half-baked new features down every browser’s throat ASAP is just a recipe for churn, and getting developers to adopt them right away so that users then come complain that “Safari is broken” is endlessly annoying. For Chrome developers (or web developers who want to build on new shiny features right away instead of waiting 2+ years for cross-browser adoption), Safari lagging behind is “holding back the web”.
  - mtomweb 4y ago
    How does that explain the enormous number of major bugs?
  - kjksf 4y ago
    Safari / WebKit used to be the engine driving the web forward. Apple had no problem rushing things when they were at the brink of death and had to compete with IE and Mozilla by making a better browser. Only when they could kill the competition by simply saying so they switched to a leisurely mode of development. Not to mention they are also very leisurely about fixing bugs. Spin that one to make it look good for Apple, please. The only consistent position that Apple has is: what's good for our business. When they had to compete, they were forced to compete. Now that they don't have to, they don't and instead pay a few PR people to spin it as good for customers for this or that reason. With a generous free help from folks like you, also telling us how Safari is really superior browser. All we ask Apple is to put that theory to test: let Chrome and Mozilla compete and we'll see what actual users prefer.
    - jacobolus 4y ago
      Personally I find Chrome to be utterly unusable for my browsing habits (hundreds of browser tabs open at once). It glitches, spins up my laptop’s fans like there’s no tomorrow and burns through battery, eats all the RAM it can find, and easily crashes. And that’s without even getting to the privacy discussion. The existence of a Chrome-based iOS browser would quickly lead web developers to drop Safari and Firefox support (“just install Chrome bro!”) so I for one am thankful that Apple is not budging here. Their browser is, for me, strictly superior. And their political decisions are the last defense of a multi-browser web.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - patrec 4y ago
        > The existence of a Chrome-based iOS browser would quickly lead web developers to drop Safari and Firefox support (“just install Chrome bro!”) Yeah, that would totally happen because websites that force people to install some massively resource hungry and sluggish browser first will obviously out-compete those that don't.
Phrodo_00 4y ago
> forcing inferior browser on iOS users is better than Chrome winning on merits? It's really dubious to say the chrome has or would win on merits alone, and not through a monopolistic advertisement push.
- themacguffinman 4y ago
  Microsoft knows from painful experience that monopolistic advertisement pushes don't magically win the browser wars. And they really did try. For an entrepreneurial forum, it's pretty incredible how frequently magical mind control powers are attributed to marketing/advertising. Anyone who has ever made a real product knows that advertising is not enough, it only works in the long term if your product is actually good and worth using. By this logic, every Google product should automatically win. All they have to do is slap an ad on their homepage and sponsor some installation partnership deals and boom, nothing can stop Google.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    So far, only Facebook (G+) or Apple (Android) has stopped Google. They've spent the last few years successfully killing travel websites and shopping websites. Unless you have the resources and customer lock-in of a Facebook or Apple, you're probably doomed if Google looks your way.
    - lern_too_spel 4y ago
      Nonsense. If the user need can't be satisfied in a search page result, Google is completely impotent. Slack, Zoom, WhatsApp, Stripe, etc. all prove this out.
  - rhinoceraptor 4y ago
    They're still trying pretty hard, about one out of five times I try to launch something from the start menu, the search results don't find it or are too slow, and it launches Edge to search for "Fusion 360" or whatever I was trying to open, using Bing.
- deleted 4y ago
tgv 4y ago
The funny thing is that he even dares to put "cui bono" in the article.
thejosh 4y ago
Except try and go and search for "google chrome" on a fresh windows 10/11 machine and see how much they beg you to please not switch.
dmitriid 4y ago
He was a premiere developer advocate for Chrome, and is the primary author and promoter of web components. He spent inordinary amounts of time vilifying anything that even remotely looked like competition. Then he went to work for Microsoft, and... nothing really changed. Though quite infrequently (hur hur pun) he mentions Chrome now.
- jefftk 4y ago
  I think his criticism of Chrome/Google in https://infrequently.org/2021/07/hobsons-browser/ https://infrequently.org/2021/07/hobsons-browser/ is pretty solid
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    Yeah, this one is actually quite solid. I can't remember the few issues I had with it.
nailer 4y ago
And he's complaining about Apple, a trillion dollar company that gave up trying to compete against Firefox and IE and finally just started bundling a KDE fork.

by dwaite 4y ago

It appears the author works for Microsoft, a trillion dollar company that gave up trying to compete against Google and finally just started bundling a Chrome fork.

CyberNoodle 4y ago

Actually before that he worked at Google. He has made it his life mission to get chromium everywhere.

jacobolus 4y ago
Before that he made the Dojo JavaScript library (jQuery precursor / competitor). Alex Russell’s position has always been that web developers (especially library authors) need as many browser features as possible to help them build the most flexible / capable web applications possible. He has consistently pushed for browsers to ship new features ASAP, with the idea that developers can paper over the differences or work around a buggy API, but can’t turn nothing into something. My impression is that he joined Google because he thought that was the best way to further that pre-established goal; it’s not fair to say that he’s just promoting this because he thinks it is in Google/Microsoft/Chrome’s interest. By contrast, Safari developers’ position has long been that new browser features should be carefully evaluated and then implemented at leisure, because this is a long game and we don’t need rush jobs. Their focus is more on client-side resource use (it’s shocking how far behind Chrome is on this one), correctness of the features they do decide to implement, performance, and user privacy (Google’s whole business model is ubiquitous surveillance). These two positions are both defensible, but are at odds with each-other. For Safari developers, Chrome trying to ram big piles of half-baked new features down every browser’s throat ASAP is just a recipe for churn, and getting developers to adopt them right away so that users then come complain that “Safari is broken” is endlessly annoying. For Chrome developers (or web developers who want to build on new shiny features right away instead of waiting 2+ years for cross-browser adoption), Safari lagging behind is “holding back the web”.
- mtomweb 4y ago
  How does that explain the enormous number of major bugs?
- kjksf 4y ago
  Safari / WebKit used to be the engine driving the web forward. Apple had no problem rushing things when they were at the brink of death and had to compete with IE and Mozilla by making a better browser. Only when they could kill the competition by simply saying so they switched to a leisurely mode of development. Not to mention they are also very leisurely about fixing bugs. Spin that one to make it look good for Apple, please. The only consistent position that Apple has is: what's good for our business. When they had to compete, they were forced to compete. Now that they don't have to, they don't and instead pay a few PR people to spin it as good for customers for this or that reason. With a generous free help from folks like you, also telling us how Safari is really superior browser. All we ask Apple is to put that theory to test: let Chrome and Mozilla compete and we'll see what actual users prefer.
  - jacobolus 4y ago
    Personally I find Chrome to be utterly unusable for my browsing habits (hundreds of browser tabs open at once). It glitches, spins up my laptop’s fans like there’s no tomorrow and burns through battery, eats all the RAM it can find, and easily crashes. And that’s without even getting to the privacy discussion. The existence of a Chrome-based iOS browser would quickly lead web developers to drop Safari and Firefox support (“just install Chrome bro!”) so I for one am thankful that Apple is not budging here. Their browser is, for me, strictly superior. And their political decisions are the last defense of a multi-browser web.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - patrec 4y ago
      > The existence of a Chrome-based iOS browser would quickly lead web developers to drop Safari and Firefox support (“just install Chrome bro!”) Yeah, that would totally happen because websites that force people to install some massively resource hungry and sluggish browser first will obviously out-compete those that don't.

Phrodo_00 4y ago

> forcing inferior browser on iOS users is better than Chrome winning on merits? It's really dubious to say the chrome has or would win on merits alone, and not through a monopolistic advertisement push.

themacguffinman 4y ago
Microsoft knows from painful experience that monopolistic advertisement pushes don't magically win the browser wars. And they really did try. For an entrepreneurial forum, it's pretty incredible how frequently magical mind control powers are attributed to marketing/advertising. Anyone who has ever made a real product knows that advertising is not enough, it only works in the long term if your product is actually good and worth using. By this logic, every Google product should automatically win. All they have to do is slap an ad on their homepage and sponsor some installation partnership deals and boom, nothing can stop Google.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  So far, only Facebook (G+) or Apple (Android) has stopped Google. They've spent the last few years successfully killing travel websites and shopping websites. Unless you have the resources and customer lock-in of a Facebook or Apple, you're probably doomed if Google looks your way.
  - lern_too_spel 4y ago
    Nonsense. If the user need can't be satisfied in a search page result, Google is completely impotent. Slack, Zoom, WhatsApp, Stripe, etc. all prove this out.
- rhinoceraptor 4y ago
  They're still trying pretty hard, about one out of five times I try to launch something from the start menu, the search results don't find it or are too slow, and it launches Edge to search for "Fusion 360" or whatever I was trying to open, using Bing.
deleted 4y ago

tgv 4y ago

The funny thing is that he even dares to put "cui bono" in the article.

thejosh 4y ago

Except try and go and search for "google chrome" on a fresh windows 10/11 machine and see how much they beg you to please not switch.

dmitriid 4y ago

He was a premiere developer advocate for Chrome, and is the primary author and promoter of web components. He spent inordinary amounts of time vilifying anything that even remotely looked like competition. Then he went to work for Microsoft, and... nothing really changed. Though quite infrequently (hur hur pun) he mentions Chrome now.

jefftk 4y ago
I think his criticism of Chrome/Google in https://infrequently.org/2021/07/hobsons-browser/ https://infrequently.org/2021/07/hobsons-browser/ is pretty solid
- dmitriid 4y ago
  Yeah, this one is actually quite solid. I can't remember the few issues I had with it.

nailer 4y ago

And he's complaining about Apple, a trillion dollar company that gave up trying to compete against Firefox and IE and finally just started bundling a KDE fork.