4 ms·

Honestly why would anyone do anything other than Blink at this point? For one, there's so many examples to crib from about how to do it. But more generally, I

Honestly why would anyone do anything other than Blink at this point? For one, there's so many examples to crib from about how to do it. But more generally, I just feel like every other player in the space has adopted an adversarial stance. For sure, sometimes Safari or less typically Firefox do lead, but it's rarely by much & usually the set of capabilities overall is far far less. I don't want a monoculture either, but until we get a other pro-web player who can web-forward their shit, who is aggressive about making the web better, there's just zero hope for this conversation. Blink plus two boat anchors isn't good. The IE comparison is so woefully out of touch & distasteful. Hard pass. Chrome tries. There wasn't the ecosystem of standards bodies back when IE was inventing stuff whenever they felt like, but today there are tons of expectations & reviews happening at multiple levels to try to refine & figure out what makes sense. In some ways it works great & a lot of review happens, but Moz + Apple hate any real power for the web & kick & scream & don't actually review what should be done if we did want to do the capability & reject on principle making a bigger web platform. There's no real debate because 2/3 players actively believe & push for a small web. It's a miserable rock & hard place situation, trying to figure out what to do when there's only one ayer who believes in a web platform at all. I love the new entrants, but I really worry they'll also be into their own jam & not excited or interested in making a broader better web platform, and just turn the 2 Vs 1 anti/pro web into a 3 Vs 1 battle.

jpk 4y ago
> There's no real debate because 2/3 players actively believe & push for a small web. It's a miserable rock & hard place situation, trying to figure out what to do when there's only one ayer who believes in a web platform at all. Not to say I don't believe you, I'm just curious. In what way(s) does Google uniquely believe in the web as a platform where Apple/Mozilla don't? Can you provide some examples of this?
- rektide 4y ago
  Like 18 months ago Safari launched a "look at us we are so great, we don't support these long list of web apis; isn't chrome evil" and Moz joined in like two days latter repeating the exact same claims in an obviously coordinated negativity-campaign. Web USB, web Bluetooth, web midi, ambient light sensor, bunch of other sensors. I'm sorry I really want to find the links & show this off more. It was the most boldfaced & honest admission that basic useful interesting things were not welcome, profiteering off suspicion & hostility while telling users that the anti-feature was undecidedly the only acceptable way. One can also review moz's standards positions. It's a great effort & I applaud Moz for their transparency & don't want to hurt the effort. There's aot of good too. But there's such a long sordid history of Moz saying no absolutely not this is awful, then eventually having to circle back around & at least make some effort to not be a huge stick in the mud, to at least help figure out at some degree what would fit if this was a goal. And often deciding yeah, we will do it https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ They just don't seem to have any ability to differentiate between what a privileged/permission-ed site should be granted versus what the baseline security model should be. Any potential information leak anywhere seems like cause to terminate effort.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    I completely agree. The amount of FUD Mozilla spread about Web MIDI was truly distasteful. People say that Google is the enemy, and perhaps they are. But at least Google does not write off entire groups of users (like musicians) because of a swivel-eyed security paranoia. If I wanted a paternalistic entity telling me what I can and can’t do with my device, I’d use an iPad.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      > The amount of FUD Mozilla spread about Web MIDI was truly distasteful. As in: everything they said is true, and the moment they launched it they found it's used for fingerprinting (and Google doesn't even hide it behind a permission prompt)
      - zarzavat 4y ago
        Anything can be used for fingerprinting. Your GPU can be used for fingerprinting. Your fonts can be used for fingerprinting. MIDI is so far down the list of fingerprinting threats. If Mozilla are really serious about fingerprinting then they need to remove <canvas> right now and make every website render in Times New Roman. Fingerprinting cannot be solved by disabling browser features in a standard browser. It can be mitigated by using content blockers such that the fingerprinting code never runs, or by using a specialist browser like the Tor browser.
        illiarian 4y ago
        > Anything can be used for fingerprinting. Yes and that's a major issue > If Mozilla are really serious about fingerprinting then they need to remove <canvas> right now Ad absurdum is not as great an argument as you think it is > Fingerprinting cannot be solved by disabling browser features in a standard browser. It also shouldn't be facilitated by just blindly turning them on without propert mitigation. And proper mitigation is complex > It can be mitigated by using content blockers So now you're shifting the responsibility onto the user. Even though it's been shown time and again that users can't really understand all the complexities of modern systems, their capabilities and the far-reaching results of what these systems can and do.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  WebUSB: You can argue their resistance was justified in that specific instance, but it's a prototypical example of their general stance
  - illiarian 4y ago
    So the prototypical example of their stance is: their resistance was justified.
    - BoorishBears 4y ago
      No, the prototypical example of their stance is: you can argue their resistance was justified. If you believe in a big web it was not justified, otherwise it was, as the original comment was asking for an example of.
      - illiarian 4y ago
        Their stance has nothing to do with a "belief in a big web", whatever "big web" is.
        BoorishBears 4y ago
        You don't even understand the term but you're being so dismissive. Maybe read the full thread and then comment. By definition their stance is 100% about "a big web". It's an ideology that the browser shouldn't become another OS competing vs one that it should. And while one side of the conversation tends to see their approach as 100% correct, the history was people downloading random exes with 0 sandboxing to do 99% of what SPAs offer today, so there's merit to both trains of thought.
        illiarian 4y ago
        > You don't even understand the term "Big web" isn't a term. It's some vague unspecified idea that you may have. > By definition their stance is 100% about "a big web". By what definition? > It's an ideology that the browser shouldn't become another OS competing vs one that it should. Of course this is not Firefox's stance.
- waboremo 4y ago
  Prior to app store creation, Apple and Google were the same regarding the web as a legitimate platform. After it was released, only really Google was pushing for it. Hence the creation of Progressive Web Apps, thanks to Alex Russell et al at Google.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    PWAs failed in the marketplace and are essentially dead. Google pushed them because they were already on track for web dominance, and the shift toward native apps was a threat to that. These days Google still wants to control the web (and more or less does), but they also have a healthy app ecosystem, albeit only for Android. I'm sure it still bugs them to no end that they have zero control over the app experience on iOS, which they possibly could have had more input on had webapps ended up being the dominant way of doing things on mobile.
    - Rexogamer 4y ago
      "PWAs are essentially dead"?!? They haven't replaced native apps for sure but I think it's a pretty major stretch to call them done and dusted
      - di4na 4y ago
        From a engineer mind share pov they are. Users don't use them. Engineers do not build them. They are stillborn and i don't see a way out.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        Engineers build them for big corps and ecommerce sites. The respective users, specially the corporate ones, have no alternative other than using them.
        rektide 4y ago
        I think the expectation that tech wins & is everywhere in 5 years is murdering useful progress. It's not the climate we are in any more. Success is slow boiling, especially for web standards. The lack of empathy for how long change takes keeps letting doom & gloomers send good things to the graveyard.
xcdzvyn 4y ago
I wouldn't say this is an uncommon philosophy. I for one am very aware that Firefox is, for the most part, an objectively worse browser than Chrome; SpiderMonkey is worse than V8, Gecko is worse than Blink. I still use it in a futile attempt to avoid Google's monopoly on the web (and for tree-style tab), but I'm perpetually disappointed by Mozilla's mismanagement of Firefox. It's as if Mozilla is trying to morph Firefox in to a discount Chrome clone by stripping it of its only appeal, killing it's viability to both markets simultaneously.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kelnos 4y ago
  I agree with you that Mozilla's mismanagement of... everything... had been a disappointment, but Firefox is... fine. I've used it for years and have few complaints. I expect it's strictly worse than Chrome on several axes, but I doubt in ways that most people would notice or care about.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > I wouldn't say this is an uncommon philosophy. I for one am very aware that Firefox is, for the most part, an objectively worse browser than Chrome; Maybe it is objectively inferior to chrome, but not enought to make me switch. IOW, I'm not missing anything by staying with FF because all the sites I use work with FF. In fact, a site that only works on one browser is probably not a site that anyone goes to anyway, objective metrics be damned.
linuxandrew 4y ago
Google/Blink consistently pushes for bad things like EME, FLoC and Topics API. They have a very different vision of the web where users live in a corporate playground and complex browser engines which only a few large corps can manage. At this point what is making the web a better platform? The web has feature overload, even with features like Server Push which are seldom used. FWIW I think there are some exciting possibilities and new features for the web, especially around the P2P space, but I don't think it's in Google's interests to push for that at all.
- rektide 4y ago
  It's a huge company of hundreds of competing ideas. I think most no one has any respect or appreciation for the circumstance flocs & topic Api was raised in. The dogfucker skanks at Internet Advertising Bureau were actively pushing government regulators to replace cookies with some gobshit anti user trash, far worse. I genuinely feel for Google. No one sees or knows any of the other context going down at the time, but all eyes are on the team of like 40 trying to find some way to preserve some privacy, in an org & task that is the hugest fucking lightning rod for attention & negativity, being the most visible & one of the most hated companies on the planet. I agree that Google seems to have kind of lost the will to fight for a lot of good shit. There's still tons of great Google initiatives, but if someone can't tick it off their OKR within 8 months & call it a raring success, the effort & the team has seemingly no backing, no one with real principle intelligence or spine to keep the really really smart good shit going. That's just not a reasonable time frame for adoption. The web's early adopters take 3 years, minimum, for most interesting capabilities, and there's seemingly no one anywhere with that kind of patience for rolling out. Fuck this industry. This is why we can't have nice things.
  - quantumwoke 4y ago
    While I think your viewpoint is interesting, the language prevented me from appreciating it fully. Would you mind expanding on your opinion on privacy and Mozilla/Apple’s role in the standards process a little more?
    - 4y ago
flohofwoe 4y ago
Just one point, but an embedded Chromium instance is around 10x bigger than an embedded WebKit instance.

jpk 4y ago

> There's no real debate because 2/3 players actively believe & push for a small web. It's a miserable rock & hard place situation, trying to figure out what to do when there's only one ayer who believes in a web platform at all. Not to say I don't believe you, I'm just curious. In what way(s) does Google uniquely believe in the web as a platform where Apple/Mozilla don't? Can you provide some examples of this?

rektide 4y ago
Like 18 months ago Safari launched a "look at us we are so great, we don't support these long list of web apis; isn't chrome evil" and Moz joined in like two days latter repeating the exact same claims in an obviously coordinated negativity-campaign. Web USB, web Bluetooth, web midi, ambient light sensor, bunch of other sensors. I'm sorry I really want to find the links & show this off more. It was the most boldfaced & honest admission that basic useful interesting things were not welcome, profiteering off suspicion & hostility while telling users that the anti-feature was undecidedly the only acceptable way. One can also review moz's standards positions. It's a great effort & I applaud Moz for their transparency & don't want to hurt the effort. There's aot of good too. But there's such a long sordid history of Moz saying no absolutely not this is awful, then eventually having to circle back around & at least make some effort to not be a huge stick in the mud, to at least help figure out at some degree what would fit if this was a goal. And often deciding yeah, we will do it https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ They just don't seem to have any ability to differentiate between what a privileged/permission-ed site should be granted versus what the baseline security model should be. Any potential information leak anywhere seems like cause to terminate effort.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  I completely agree. The amount of FUD Mozilla spread about Web MIDI was truly distasteful. People say that Google is the enemy, and perhaps they are. But at least Google does not write off entire groups of users (like musicians) because of a swivel-eyed security paranoia. If I wanted a paternalistic entity telling me what I can and can’t do with my device, I’d use an iPad.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    > The amount of FUD Mozilla spread about Web MIDI was truly distasteful. As in: everything they said is true, and the moment they launched it they found it's used for fingerprinting (and Google doesn't even hide it behind a permission prompt)
    - zarzavat 4y ago
      Anything can be used for fingerprinting. Your GPU can be used for fingerprinting. Your fonts can be used for fingerprinting. MIDI is so far down the list of fingerprinting threats. If Mozilla are really serious about fingerprinting then they need to remove <canvas> right now and make every website render in Times New Roman. Fingerprinting cannot be solved by disabling browser features in a standard browser. It can be mitigated by using content blockers such that the fingerprinting code never runs, or by using a specialist browser like the Tor browser.
      - illiarian 4y ago
        > Anything can be used for fingerprinting. Yes and that's a major issue > If Mozilla are really serious about fingerprinting then they need to remove <canvas> right now Ad absurdum is not as great an argument as you think it is > Fingerprinting cannot be solved by disabling browser features in a standard browser. It also shouldn't be facilitated by just blindly turning them on without propert mitigation. And proper mitigation is complex > It can be mitigated by using content blockers So now you're shifting the responsibility onto the user. Even though it's been shown time and again that users can't really understand all the complexities of modern systems, their capabilities and the far-reaching results of what these systems can and do.
BoorishBears 4y ago
WebUSB: You can argue their resistance was justified in that specific instance, but it's a prototypical example of their general stance
- illiarian 4y ago
  So the prototypical example of their stance is: their resistance was justified.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    No, the prototypical example of their stance is: you can argue their resistance was justified. If you believe in a big web it was not justified, otherwise it was, as the original comment was asking for an example of.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      Their stance has nothing to do with a "belief in a big web", whatever "big web" is.
      - BoorishBears 4y ago
        You don't even understand the term but you're being so dismissive. Maybe read the full thread and then comment. By definition their stance is 100% about "a big web". It's an ideology that the browser shouldn't become another OS competing vs one that it should. And while one side of the conversation tends to see their approach as 100% correct, the history was people downloading random exes with 0 sandboxing to do 99% of what SPAs offer today, so there's merit to both trains of thought.
        illiarian 4y ago
        > You don't even understand the term "Big web" isn't a term. It's some vague unspecified idea that you may have. > By definition their stance is 100% about "a big web". By what definition? > It's an ideology that the browser shouldn't become another OS competing vs one that it should. Of course this is not Firefox's stance.
waboremo 4y ago
Prior to app store creation, Apple and Google were the same regarding the web as a legitimate platform. After it was released, only really Google was pushing for it. Hence the creation of Progressive Web Apps, thanks to Alex Russell et al at Google.
- kelnos 4y ago
  PWAs failed in the marketplace and are essentially dead. Google pushed them because they were already on track for web dominance, and the shift toward native apps was a threat to that. These days Google still wants to control the web (and more or less does), but they also have a healthy app ecosystem, albeit only for Android. I'm sure it still bugs them to no end that they have zero control over the app experience on iOS, which they possibly could have had more input on had webapps ended up being the dominant way of doing things on mobile.
  - Rexogamer 4y ago
    "PWAs are essentially dead"?!? They haven't replaced native apps for sure but I think it's a pretty major stretch to call them done and dusted
    - di4na 4y ago
      From a engineer mind share pov they are. Users don't use them. Engineers do not build them. They are stillborn and i don't see a way out.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Engineers build them for big corps and ecommerce sites. The respective users, specially the corporate ones, have no alternative other than using them.
      - rektide 4y ago
        I think the expectation that tech wins & is everywhere in 5 years is murdering useful progress. It's not the climate we are in any more. Success is slow boiling, especially for web standards. The lack of empathy for how long change takes keeps letting doom & gloomers send good things to the graveyard.

xcdzvyn 4y ago

I wouldn't say this is an uncommon philosophy. I for one am very aware that Firefox is, for the most part, an objectively worse browser than Chrome; SpiderMonkey is worse than V8, Gecko is worse than Blink. I still use it in a futile attempt to avoid Google's monopoly on the web (and for tree-style tab), but I'm perpetually disappointed by Mozilla's mismanagement of Firefox. It's as if Mozilla is trying to morph Firefox in to a discount Chrome clone by stripping it of its only appeal, killing it's viability to both markets simultaneously.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kelnos 4y ago
I agree with you that Mozilla's mismanagement of... everything... had been a disappointment, but Firefox is... fine. I've used it for years and have few complaints. I expect it's strictly worse than Chrome on several axes, but I doubt in ways that most people would notice or care about.
lelanthran 4y ago
> I wouldn't say this is an uncommon philosophy. I for one am very aware that Firefox is, for the most part, an objectively worse browser than Chrome; Maybe it is objectively inferior to chrome, but not enought to make me switch. IOW, I'm not missing anything by staying with FF because all the sites I use work with FF. In fact, a site that only works on one browser is probably not a site that anyone goes to anyway, objective metrics be damned.

linuxandrew 4y ago

Google/Blink consistently pushes for bad things like EME, FLoC and Topics API. They have a very different vision of the web where users live in a corporate playground and complex browser engines which only a few large corps can manage. At this point what is making the web a better platform? The web has feature overload, even with features like Server Push which are seldom used. FWIW I think there are some exciting possibilities and new features for the web, especially around the P2P space, but I don't think it's in Google's interests to push for that at all.

rektide 4y ago
It's a huge company of hundreds of competing ideas. I think most no one has any respect or appreciation for the circumstance flocs & topic Api was raised in. The dogfucker skanks at Internet Advertising Bureau were actively pushing government regulators to replace cookies with some gobshit anti user trash, far worse. I genuinely feel for Google. No one sees or knows any of the other context going down at the time, but all eyes are on the team of like 40 trying to find some way to preserve some privacy, in an org & task that is the hugest fucking lightning rod for attention & negativity, being the most visible & one of the most hated companies on the planet. I agree that Google seems to have kind of lost the will to fight for a lot of good shit. There's still tons of great Google initiatives, but if someone can't tick it off their OKR within 8 months & call it a raring success, the effort & the team has seemingly no backing, no one with real principle intelligence or spine to keep the really really smart good shit going. That's just not a reasonable time frame for adoption. The web's early adopters take 3 years, minimum, for most interesting capabilities, and there's seemingly no one anywhere with that kind of patience for rolling out. Fuck this industry. This is why we can't have nice things.
- quantumwoke 4y ago
  While I think your viewpoint is interesting, the language prevented me from appreciating it fully. Would you mind expanding on your opinion on privacy and Mozilla/Apple’s role in the standards process a little more?
  - 4y ago

flohofwoe 4y ago

Just one point, but an embedded Chromium instance is around 10x bigger than an embedded WebKit instance.