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Open Web Advocacy has been very clear that they want competition on iOS, not Chrome specifically. The reason being that the absence of competition is currently

by agust 4y ago

Open Web Advocacy has been very clear that they want competition on iOS, not Chrome specifically. The reason being that the absence of competition is currently allowing Apple to deteriorate the web experience on iOS, preventing the web and web apps from competing with native apps. Their objective is to lift these artificial limitations imposed by Apple and free the web. OWA members have actually been actively reporting WebKit bugs and interacting with the Safari team to help prioritise features and bug fixes on Twitter and elsewhere, showing the goal is to improve the overall web experience on iOS, not allow Chrome to become dominant. Here is one of their detailed bug report: https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop-2022/issues/84 https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop-2022/issues/84.

MBCook 4y ago
Competition on iOS without real competition on the desktop already existing could quickly mean unbreakable Chrome hegemony. That’s why I originally commented. If you focus on just one of those I believe there will be terrible unintentional consequences.
- dcow 4y ago
  This whole chrome fetish thing you've got is actually the issue. Everyone thinks "there is only Chrome" so in a sense we all deceive ourselves. I don't know a single person anymore who uses Chrome. Maybe you do but that's not really the point. If you don't want a Chrome hegemony then don't fool yourself into thinking there is one and don't proliferate that ideology. Tell your product people that NO, you're not going to just ship the Chrome version and support Safari and Firefox later. Put in the work to make software work on other browsers. That's how you break the status quo. The amount of times I've seen some software company tell users "our product only works on Chrome" is disgusting. No wonder it's popular... people don't have a choice because of shitty software.
  - nemothekid 4y ago
    >I don't know a single person anymore who uses Chrome. I find this very hard to believe. Everyone you know uses Firefox?
    - dcow 4y ago
      And Safari and Brave and Edge (so some use Blink).
      - nemothekid 4y ago
        So Safari and Chromium and Chromium. I'm not sure who the one here is deceiving themselves.
        dcow 4y ago
        Chromium != Chrome. We're talking about some world where Google Chrome takes over everything not where Chromium derivatives compete with Google Chrome for browser market share based on features and merits. That latter outcome defeats the "chrome hegemony" which is what the person I initially responded to is complaining about.
        nemothekid 4y ago
        Chromium dominance is effectively Google dominance when it comes to the open web. That is a world where Google no longer has to follow any sort of standards body because it is the standard. Another commenter, snowwrestler[1], put it best: >With full control of the rendering engine on all platforms, Google can stop engaging with standards bodies. Web rendering standards will become simply what Google says they are, even if it is to their benefit. Imagine AMP but on steroids. When Safari stops rendering mobile sites correctly, there will be lots of helpful friends and family (and ads) telling folks to "just switch to Chrome, it's a better browser anyway." >Google could also ship their own root certificate list and take control of Web PKI. Imagine Symantec but entirely at Google's option. Play ball or get security warnings. This would allow an end run around the democratization afforded by Let's Encrypt, for example. Controlling 99% of the client end of TLS confers just as much power as controlling the CA end. All of these items are built into how Chromium renders the web. The other Chromium derivatives will be forced to swallow these changes because what are they going to do? Fork and maintain their own browser engine? Bisect patches from upstream forever? How many of these Chromium forks will have the resources to maintain their own fork of something as complex as Chromium? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31898439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31898439
giantrobot 4y ago
> Open Web Advocacy has been very clear that they want competition on iOS And it is being pointed out, repeatedly, that the only actual real competition is Chrome. When Chrome becomes an option then websites will abandon any pretense of adhering to standards and just code to Chrome. You can't pretend the mobile browser landscape won't just end up mirroring that of the desktop. The total browser share of iOS shifting to Chrome, even if Chrome only got 50% of iOS users, would put the total browser share of Chrome over 90%. There would be no impetus for any website to write for anything but Chrome.

by agust 4y ago

MBCook 4y ago

Competition on iOS without real competition on the desktop already existing could quickly mean unbreakable Chrome hegemony. That’s why I originally commented. If you focus on just one of those I believe there will be terrible unintentional consequences.

dcow 4y ago
This whole chrome fetish thing you've got is actually the issue. Everyone thinks "there is only Chrome" so in a sense we all deceive ourselves. I don't know a single person anymore who uses Chrome. Maybe you do but that's not really the point. If you don't want a Chrome hegemony then don't fool yourself into thinking there is one and don't proliferate that ideology. Tell your product people that NO, you're not going to just ship the Chrome version and support Safari and Firefox later. Put in the work to make software work on other browsers. That's how you break the status quo. The amount of times I've seen some software company tell users "our product only works on Chrome" is disgusting. No wonder it's popular... people don't have a choice because of shitty software.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  >I don't know a single person anymore who uses Chrome. I find this very hard to believe. Everyone you know uses Firefox?
  - dcow 4y ago
    And Safari and Brave and Edge (so some use Blink).
    - nemothekid 4y ago
      So Safari and Chromium and Chromium. I'm not sure who the one here is deceiving themselves.
      - dcow 4y ago
        Chromium != Chrome. We're talking about some world where Google Chrome takes over everything not where Chromium derivatives compete with Google Chrome for browser market share based on features and merits. That latter outcome defeats the "chrome hegemony" which is what the person I initially responded to is complaining about.
        nemothekid 4y ago
        Chromium dominance is effectively Google dominance when it comes to the open web. That is a world where Google no longer has to follow any sort of standards body because it is the standard. Another commenter, snowwrestler[1], put it best: >With full control of the rendering engine on all platforms, Google can stop engaging with standards bodies. Web rendering standards will become simply what Google says they are, even if it is to their benefit. Imagine AMP but on steroids. When Safari stops rendering mobile sites correctly, there will be lots of helpful friends and family (and ads) telling folks to "just switch to Chrome, it's a better browser anyway." >Google could also ship their own root certificate list and take control of Web PKI. Imagine Symantec but entirely at Google's option. Play ball or get security warnings. This would allow an end run around the democratization afforded by Let's Encrypt, for example. Controlling 99% of the client end of TLS confers just as much power as controlling the CA end. All of these items are built into how Chromium renders the web. The other Chromium derivatives will be forced to swallow these changes because what are they going to do? Fork and maintain their own browser engine? Bisect patches from upstream forever? How many of these Chromium forks will have the resources to maintain their own fork of something as complex as Chromium? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31898439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31898439

giantrobot 4y ago

> Open Web Advocacy has been very clear that they want competition on iOS And it is being pointed out, repeatedly, that the only actual real competition is Chrome. When Chrome becomes an option then websites will abandon any pretense of adhering to standards and just code to Chrome. You can't pretend the mobile browser landscape won't just end up mirroring that of the desktop. The total browser share of iOS shifting to Chrome, even if Chrome only got 50% of iOS users, would put the total browser share of Chrome over 90%. There would be no impetus for any website to write for anything but Chrome.