3 ms·

Would you mind spelling the difference a bit more clearly? The comment chain has another comment that the browsers developers actually develop for a specific br

Would you mind spelling the difference a bit more clearly? The comment chain has another comment that the browsers developers actually develop for a specific browser (usually Chrome because larger userbase), and this choice developers make influences which browsers users like to use because websites supposedly work better on that browser. So there seems to be variation in implementing the standards you refer to. I don't know much about browser diversity (Chrome and Firefox give near-identical experiences to me as a user), so I personally don't feel that the argument developers significantly influence users holds much water (of course facts don't care about my feelings which may be wrong). I think the only time I noticed a significant difference as a user was when Firefox didn't implement a certain download API allowing for large downloads like Chrome, and I only encountered that difference in using Mega (the upload service).

oefrha 3y ago
caniuse and MDN compat data is really good these days, so you usually don't even need to crack open Firefox to be able to decide whether a JS API or a CSS feature is portable. For instance, in the Mega case, I assume they use the FileSystem API (since they have to download a large encrypted blob to a staging area first), and it's very easy to check availability of that API on all major browsers. As long as you don't chase the latest standards or WICG proposals, your code is likely going to work across all major browsers.[1] As I said in another comment, I occasionally check whether my sites work in Firefox and Safari, and they're just fine almost all of the time. It seems to me that some diehard Firefox fans assume that just because some sites don't work on Firefox, all developers have to dedicate special attention to Firefox or their sites will be broken. That's very far from truth. [1] More care is needed for mobile Safari, which often imposes additional non-obvious constraints, but that's a separate topic.
- zogrodea 3y ago
  Thank you for the thorough answer! Learned something new today.

oefrha 3y ago

caniuse and MDN compat data is really good these days, so you usually don't even need to crack open Firefox to be able to decide whether a JS API or a CSS feature is portable. For instance, in the Mega case, I assume they use the FileSystem API (since they have to download a large encrypted blob to a staging area first), and it's very easy to check availability of that API on all major browsers. As long as you don't chase the latest standards or WICG proposals, your code is likely going to work across all major browsers.[1] As I said in another comment, I occasionally check whether my sites work in Firefox and Safari, and they're just fine almost all of the time. It seems to me that some diehard Firefox fans assume that just because some sites don't work on Firefox, all developers have to dedicate special attention to Firefox or their sites will be broken. That's very far from truth. [1] More care is needed for mobile Safari, which often imposes additional non-obvious constraints, but that's a separate topic.

zogrodea 3y ago
Thank you for the thorough answer! Learned something new today.