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The fundamental problem is that the browser is too complicated, and thus a natural monopoly. Severing Chrome from Google is simply to pass the peasant-beating

The fundamental problem is that the browser is too complicated, and thus a natural monopoly. Severing Chrome from Google is simply to pass the peasant-beating stick to Apple. The solution is to cut browser functionality down to a size that more companies (or even individuals) can manage. Even though it’s open-source, googzilla (Google + their “nonprofit” antitrust insurance policy) adds hostilities faster than volunteers can remove them. Things only got this bad because Google has so much power over your visibility on the web. If they say “jump!”, most people are going to respond, “how high?”

fifticon 2y ago
it is a mega-OS, an application forming an OS on top of the actual OS, and dwarfing said OS. It's like our original OS'ses now form a sort of BIOS :-/, necessary evils to host the 'browser OS'. It is what MS feared in the 1990s.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Anyone who didn't see the browser becoming a VM by the early 00s had their head in the sand.
immibis 2y ago
The more fundamental problem is that the browser became too complicated because there was only one of them and they only had to consider themselves when adding features. Exactly like IE before it, but even more extreme. In IE's case, websites avoided IE extensions because they only worked on IE, even when it was the dominant browser.
jasode 2y ago
>The solution is to cut browser functionality down to a size that more companies (or even individuals) can manage. Removing features from browsers isn't a realistic "solution" if the end result is a "minimal browser" that normal users don't want to use. There are many simpler/minimalist web browsers: https://www.google.com/search?q=minimalist+open+source+browser https://www.google.com/search?q=minimalist+open+source+brows... The common issue with all of them is "some websites don't work with it". This means the minimalist browsers create a tiny self-selected group of hardcore technically savvy users because they are they only ones who are willing to put up with random incompatibilities. Whatever <X features> you want to hypothetically remove from browsers such that an individual coder can "hold the smaller source code all in their head" -- will create a limited and more "broken" browser from the perspective of normal mainstream web surfers.
- miohtama 2y ago
  Effectively the argument is "let's go backt to 90s web without video, audio, fonts or even page layouts"
  - graemep 2y ago
    I would love to get rid of fonts and layouts. As for video and audio, they could be done better AND more simply than the typically are at the moment.
    - hello_computer 2y ago
      Exactly. We used to have different protocols for these things, which were far more efficient than jamming it all into HTTP inside TLS inside TCP. Can’t even do UDP in the browser, which is exactly what you need for realtime streaming communication. 25 years ago, on my 1GHz computer, with 512MB of RAM, I had no trouble watching videos, playing music, sending files & emails, making calls, etc--all over the internet. So many people are confused into thinking that computing didn't begin until javascript, which was not the beginning, but the beginning of the end.
  - hello_computer 2y ago
    That isn’t it. The argument is STOP. Chrome has become an OS that is bigger than the OS it runs on. This complexity did not arise from “user features” (which the OS already covers), but from “google features” (the morass of policy to provide limited security on a dozen platforms without toppling the adwords kingdom).
- hello_computer 2y ago
  Think LISP vs COBOL. Both are Turing complete. What you can implement in one, you can implement in the other. But the spec for one is much much larger than the other. With the virtualization/containerization facilities baked into common desktop OSes today, we could deliver a complete (and far more secure) experience, needing only a fraction of the boilerplate WHATWG stuffed into Chrome and Firefox over the years. And with the magic of compilers, we could transpile most existing work down to the new simplified VM. Most “web apps” are already getting transpiled from typescript/javascript to minified javascript. Changing the target is not an insurmountable task.

fifticon 2y ago

it is a mega-OS, an application forming an OS on top of the actual OS, and dwarfing said OS. It's like our original OS'ses now form a sort of BIOS :-/, necessary evils to host the 'browser OS'. It is what MS feared in the 1990s.

ethbr1 2y ago
Anyone who didn't see the browser becoming a VM by the early 00s had their head in the sand.

immibis 2y ago

The more fundamental problem is that the browser became too complicated because there was only one of them and they only had to consider themselves when adding features. Exactly like IE before it, but even more extreme. In IE's case, websites avoided IE extensions because they only worked on IE, even when it was the dominant browser.

jasode 2y ago

>The solution is to cut browser functionality down to a size that more companies (or even individuals) can manage. Removing features from browsers isn't a realistic "solution" if the end result is a "minimal browser" that normal users don't want to use. There are many simpler/minimalist web browsers: https://www.google.com/search?q=minimalist+open+source+browser https://www.google.com/search?q=minimalist+open+source+brows... The common issue with all of them is "some websites don't work with it". This means the minimalist browsers create a tiny self-selected group of hardcore technically savvy users because they are they only ones who are willing to put up with random incompatibilities. Whatever <X features> you want to hypothetically remove from browsers such that an individual coder can "hold the smaller source code all in their head" -- will create a limited and more "broken" browser from the perspective of normal mainstream web surfers.

miohtama 2y ago
Effectively the argument is "let's go backt to 90s web without video, audio, fonts or even page layouts"
- graemep 2y ago
  I would love to get rid of fonts and layouts. As for video and audio, they could be done better AND more simply than the typically are at the moment.
  - hello_computer 2y ago
    Exactly. We used to have different protocols for these things, which were far more efficient than jamming it all into HTTP inside TLS inside TCP. Can’t even do UDP in the browser, which is exactly what you need for realtime streaming communication. 25 years ago, on my 1GHz computer, with 512MB of RAM, I had no trouble watching videos, playing music, sending files & emails, making calls, etc--all over the internet. So many people are confused into thinking that computing didn't begin until javascript, which was not the beginning, but the beginning of the end.
- hello_computer 2y ago
  That isn’t it. The argument is STOP. Chrome has become an OS that is bigger than the OS it runs on. This complexity did not arise from “user features” (which the OS already covers), but from “google features” (the morass of policy to provide limited security on a dozen platforms without toppling the adwords kingdom).
hello_computer 2y ago
Think LISP vs COBOL. Both are Turing complete. What you can implement in one, you can implement in the other. But the spec for one is much much larger than the other. With the virtualization/containerization facilities baked into common desktop OSes today, we could deliver a complete (and far more secure) experience, needing only a fraction of the boilerplate WHATWG stuffed into Chrome and Firefox over the years. And with the magic of compilers, we could transpile most existing work down to the new simplified VM. Most “web apps” are already getting transpiled from typescript/javascript to minified javascript. Changing the target is not an insurmountable task.