17 ms·

Because at the time IE6 was a terrible browser with poor standards support, while Chrome is an excellent browser with leading standards support. It is a gilded

by rjh29 1y ago

Because at the time IE6 was a terrible browser with poor standards support, while Chrome is an excellent browser with leading standards support. It is a gilded cage.

modo_mario 1y ago
Isn't part of the issue that they have a big hand in defining the standards?
- glenstein 1y ago
  Right, and I would add: normalizing an accelerated rate of new standards adoption and vast codebases that only they can sustain.
lenkite 1y ago
It is nice when you have replaced the original standard committee with your own committee. You can always have "leading standards support". MS was not smart enough to do this. Google was smarter.
Calavar 1y ago
> Chrome is an excellent browser with leading standards support. Google learned it can be "standards compliant" if it submits a draft spec to WHATWG/W3C, and while the comment and revision process is still ongoing, roll out those features in Chrome and start using them in YouTube, Gmail, Google docs, and AMP. Now Firefox and Safari are forced to implement those draft specs as well or users will leave in droves because Google websites are broken. Soon enough, Google's draft spec is standardized with minimal revisions because it's already out there in the wild. The debate, revision, and multistakeholder aspects of the standards process have been effectively bypassed, a la IE6 and ActiveX, but Chrome can claim to be on the cutting edge of standards compliance. This is a case of Goodharts's law.
- anang 1y ago
  I don't mean this to doubt you, it is a sincere question. Do you have any examples of that happening? It sounds very believable, but it would be great to have actual sources for future reference.
  - rdsubhas 1y ago
    QUIC. HTTP/3. WebP. And more in this comment thread.
    - Calavar 1y ago
      Yep, QUIC is what I was thinking about when I wrote my additional comment, but there are many examples, as others have pointed out.
  - dijit 1y ago
    push notifications, webgpu and webusb are examples of chrome being a reference implementation and using things for their services while simultaneously pushing the standard. Push for mail, webgpu for maps (iirc) and I believe WebUSB is used for Android flash/debug.
    - mistercow 1y ago
      WebGPU is the only one of those I’ve really followed, but hasn’t that had a huge amount of input and changes due to other voices in the working group? That seems to contradict the simplistic picture painted above of Google just dictating standards to the industry.
      - dijit 1y ago
        Would webgpu exist at all if Chrome hadn’t just pushed through with an implementation? Who knows. Not us, we’ll never know.
        pjmlp 1y ago
        To add insult to injury, we probably would have gotten WebGL 2.0 Compute, which was initially done by Intel, if Chrome had not refused to ship it on Chrome, arguing that WebGPU was right around the corner, and it would take too much space, this was about 5 years ago. And to those rushing out to point out the excuse part about OpenGL on Mac not having support for compute, WebGL already back then wasn't backed up by OpenGL on all platforms, see Windows (DirectX), PlayStation (LibGNM). Also eventually Safari also moved their WebGL implementation from OpenGL to Metal, and Chrome did as well, replace their WebGL to run on top of Metal on Mac. So not really that much of a problem regarding the state of OpenGL on Mac as "required" implemenatation layer for WebGL.
- neves 1y ago
  Any serious antitrust process would break it in a separate company.
  - ekianjo 1y ago
    Would that change anything? If you have a separate company who owns a 90% market share browser, they can keep ignoring standards just fine
- rjh29 1y ago
  If Google websites break on Safari, users will stop using Google before they stop using an iPhone. They will blame Google as well. Safari has refused to implement standards multiple times.
- soraminazuki 1y ago
  If people want specifics: https://xcancel.com/rich_harris/status/1220412711768666114 https://xcancel.com/rich_harris/status/1220412711768666114
pjmlp 1y ago
That is revisionism, IE only stagnated because they kind of wipedout the competition, like Chrome is today, and Microsoft withdraw most of the development resources from the team. WPF XAML was originally designed by ex IE team members, and they were the same that a few years later proposed XAML Grid concept as CSS Grid initial design. Many JavaScript devs have to thank their abuse of JavaScript in the browser to XMLHttpRequest introduced by IE.
- matwood 1y ago
  > IE only stagnated because they kind of wipedout the competition Yeah, people forget that IE was a great browser. It was easily the most performant, I think driven by the Outlook web (I believe the first web app to make use of XMLHttpRequest) team demanding IE team make it so. The issue, like you said, is they won and then stopped updating.
  - commakozzi 1y ago
    It was sad to me watching that battle unfold. Maybe i was ignorant (and maybe i still am), but I learned most of what i know about web dev on Netscape sitting in a mac lab at university viewing source code. I HATED when IE started to takeover and eventually won that first battle. I miss Netscape :-(
  - Gud 1y ago
    Maybe for a short period. Honestly Firefox(phoenix) was my browser of choice. Internet explorer became the dominant browser for one reason only: it came by default.
    - matwood 1y ago
      > Internet explorer became the dominant browser for one reason only: it came by default. Default helped, but IE was the far superior browser for a long time. People chose to use it. I was also a FF user and it came out a few years later than IE6. When FF came out IE6 was still the superior browser, though it was eventually overtaken by both FF and Chrome.
- 1y ago
supermatt 1y ago
> leading standards support "Leading" being the operative word. Ship a new feature, submit it as a standard and encourage its adoption so things only work on chrome and further increase market share when people find other browsers "broken". MS did exactly the same shit with IE - the only really difference was that the standards body (w3c) was independent, so they couldn't self declare it as a standard. Now the "standards" body (whatwg) is mostly google...
- shaky-carrousel 1y ago
  That was quite a move from Google, replacing the independent W3C with the Google lapdog whatwg...
meindnoch 1y ago
>Chrome is an excellent browser with leading standards support Yes, Chrome has leading standards™ [1] support! _________ [1] A so-called standard™ is a piece of source code that sits on the main branch of the Chromium repository. Not to be confused with actual standards!
reaperducer 1y ago
leading standards support Except no support for: CSS Canvas Drawings CSS filter() function Video Tracks Audio Tracks FIDO U2F API SPDY protocol JPEG XL image format HTTP Live Streaming HEIF/HEIC image format SVG fonts CSS hanging-punctuation And broken support for: CSS font-smooth CSS Initial Letter Speech Recognition API CSS -webkit-user-drag property CSS3 Multiple column layout CSS text-indent Synchronous Clipboard API HEVC/H.265 video format TLS 1.1 text-decoration styling CSS display: contents CSS Container Style Queries CSS clip-path property for HTML CSS Counter Styles Ruby annotation WAI-ARIA Accessibility features Media Fragments autocomplete attribute: on & off values DOMMatrix SVG effects for HTML X-Frame-Options HTTP header DNSSEC and DANE WebXR Device API DeviceOrientation & DeviceMotion events Permissions Policy asm.js Network Information API theme-color Meta Tag Document Policy Source: https://caniuse.com https://caniuse.com The whole "Chrome is the leader in standards" meme is a lie.
- lima 1y ago
  Your copy&paste does not support your argument. Just looking at the top items on your list, it's basically a bunch of Safari-only features which no other browser vendor ships: - CSS Canvas Drawings is not a web standard. It's a WebKit-specific feature, only Safari implements it. Chromium removed it in order to replace it with an actual web standard (CSS Painting API). - Likewise, the CSS filter() function is Safari-only. - U2F API has been deprecated for years, was replaced by WebAuthn, and only Safari still implements it. - Same with SPDY, which was replaced by an actual web standard (HTTP2). Only Safari still ships it, but has marked it deprecated. - SVG Fonts were removed from the SVG spec. - HLS, JPEG-XL, HEIF/HEIC are essentially Safari-only as well. CSS hanging-punctuation and audio/video tracks are new features that haven't been widely implemented yet.
  - fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
    Considering there's 2 browsers, 3 if we're being generous, basically every new feature is a bunch of X-only features that Y doesn't support.
al_be_back 1y ago
the IE6 lawsuit was about web browser monopoly, not a complaint for poor tech.
matheusmoreira 1y ago
The "standards" are now effectively controlled by Google.

by rjh29 1y ago

Because at the time IE6 was a terrible browser with poor standards support, while Chrome is an excellent browser with leading standards support. It is a gilded cage.

modo_mario 1y ago

Isn't part of the issue that they have a big hand in defining the standards?

glenstein 1y ago
Right, and I would add: normalizing an accelerated rate of new standards adoption and vast codebases that only they can sustain.

lenkite 1y ago

It is nice when you have replaced the original standard committee with your own committee. You can always have "leading standards support". MS was not smart enough to do this. Google was smarter.

Calavar 1y ago

> Chrome is an excellent browser with leading standards support. Google learned it can be "standards compliant" if it submits a draft spec to WHATWG/W3C, and while the comment and revision process is still ongoing, roll out those features in Chrome and start using them in YouTube, Gmail, Google docs, and AMP. Now Firefox and Safari are forced to implement those draft specs as well or users will leave in droves because Google websites are broken. Soon enough, Google's draft spec is standardized with minimal revisions because it's already out there in the wild. The debate, revision, and multistakeholder aspects of the standards process have been effectively bypassed, a la IE6 and ActiveX, but Chrome can claim to be on the cutting edge of standards compliance. This is a case of Goodharts's law.

anang 1y ago
I don't mean this to doubt you, it is a sincere question. Do you have any examples of that happening? It sounds very believable, but it would be great to have actual sources for future reference.
- rdsubhas 1y ago
  QUIC. HTTP/3. WebP. And more in this comment thread.
  - Calavar 1y ago
    Yep, QUIC is what I was thinking about when I wrote my additional comment, but there are many examples, as others have pointed out.
- dijit 1y ago
  push notifications, webgpu and webusb are examples of chrome being a reference implementation and using things for their services while simultaneously pushing the standard. Push for mail, webgpu for maps (iirc) and I believe WebUSB is used for Android flash/debug.
  - mistercow 1y ago
    WebGPU is the only one of those I’ve really followed, but hasn’t that had a huge amount of input and changes due to other voices in the working group? That seems to contradict the simplistic picture painted above of Google just dictating standards to the industry.
    - dijit 1y ago
      Would webgpu exist at all if Chrome hadn’t just pushed through with an implementation? Who knows. Not us, we’ll never know.
      - pjmlp 1y ago
        To add insult to injury, we probably would have gotten WebGL 2.0 Compute, which was initially done by Intel, if Chrome had not refused to ship it on Chrome, arguing that WebGPU was right around the corner, and it would take too much space, this was about 5 years ago. And to those rushing out to point out the excuse part about OpenGL on Mac not having support for compute, WebGL already back then wasn't backed up by OpenGL on all platforms, see Windows (DirectX), PlayStation (LibGNM). Also eventually Safari also moved their WebGL implementation from OpenGL to Metal, and Chrome did as well, replace their WebGL to run on top of Metal on Mac. So not really that much of a problem regarding the state of OpenGL on Mac as "required" implemenatation layer for WebGL.
neves 1y ago
Any serious antitrust process would break it in a separate company.
- ekianjo 1y ago
  Would that change anything? If you have a separate company who owns a 90% market share browser, they can keep ignoring standards just fine
rjh29 1y ago
If Google websites break on Safari, users will stop using Google before they stop using an iPhone. They will blame Google as well. Safari has refused to implement standards multiple times.
soraminazuki 1y ago
If people want specifics: https://xcancel.com/rich_harris/status/1220412711768666114 https://xcancel.com/rich_harris/status/1220412711768666114

pjmlp 1y ago

That is revisionism, IE only stagnated because they kind of wipedout the competition, like Chrome is today, and Microsoft withdraw most of the development resources from the team. WPF XAML was originally designed by ex IE team members, and they were the same that a few years later proposed XAML Grid concept as CSS Grid initial design. Many JavaScript devs have to thank their abuse of JavaScript in the browser to XMLHttpRequest introduced by IE.

matwood 1y ago
> IE only stagnated because they kind of wipedout the competition Yeah, people forget that IE was a great browser. It was easily the most performant, I think driven by the Outlook web (I believe the first web app to make use of XMLHttpRequest) team demanding IE team make it so. The issue, like you said, is they won and then stopped updating.
- commakozzi 1y ago
  It was sad to me watching that battle unfold. Maybe i was ignorant (and maybe i still am), but I learned most of what i know about web dev on Netscape sitting in a mac lab at university viewing source code. I HATED when IE started to takeover and eventually won that first battle. I miss Netscape :-(
- Gud 1y ago
  Maybe for a short period. Honestly Firefox(phoenix) was my browser of choice. Internet explorer became the dominant browser for one reason only: it came by default.
  - matwood 1y ago
    > Internet explorer became the dominant browser for one reason only: it came by default. Default helped, but IE was the far superior browser for a long time. People chose to use it. I was also a FF user and it came out a few years later than IE6. When FF came out IE6 was still the superior browser, though it was eventually overtaken by both FF and Chrome.
1y ago

supermatt 1y ago

> leading standards support "Leading" being the operative word. Ship a new feature, submit it as a standard and encourage its adoption so things only work on chrome and further increase market share when people find other browsers "broken". MS did exactly the same shit with IE - the only really difference was that the standards body (w3c) was independent, so they couldn't self declare it as a standard. Now the "standards" body (whatwg) is mostly google...

shaky-carrousel 1y ago
That was quite a move from Google, replacing the independent W3C with the Google lapdog whatwg...

meindnoch 1y ago

>Chrome is an excellent browser with leading standards support Yes, Chrome has leading standards™ [1] support! _________ [1] A so-called standard™ is a piece of source code that sits on the main branch of the Chromium repository. Not to be confused with actual standards!

reaperducer 1y ago

leading standards support Except no support for: CSS Canvas Drawings CSS filter() function Video Tracks Audio Tracks FIDO U2F API SPDY protocol JPEG XL image format HTTP Live Streaming HEIF/HEIC image format SVG fonts CSS hanging-punctuation And broken support for: CSS font-smooth CSS Initial Letter Speech Recognition API CSS -webkit-user-drag property CSS3 Multiple column layout CSS text-indent Synchronous Clipboard API HEVC/H.265 video format TLS 1.1 text-decoration styling CSS display: contents CSS Container Style Queries CSS clip-path property for HTML CSS Counter Styles Ruby annotation WAI-ARIA Accessibility features Media Fragments autocomplete attribute: on & off values DOMMatrix SVG effects for HTML X-Frame-Options HTTP header DNSSEC and DANE WebXR Device API DeviceOrientation & DeviceMotion events Permissions Policy asm.js Network Information API theme-color Meta Tag Document Policy Source: https://caniuse.com https://caniuse.com The whole "Chrome is the leader in standards" meme is a lie.

lima 1y ago
Your copy&paste does not support your argument. Just looking at the top items on your list, it's basically a bunch of Safari-only features which no other browser vendor ships: - CSS Canvas Drawings is not a web standard. It's a WebKit-specific feature, only Safari implements it. Chromium removed it in order to replace it with an actual web standard (CSS Painting API). - Likewise, the CSS filter() function is Safari-only. - U2F API has been deprecated for years, was replaced by WebAuthn, and only Safari still implements it. - Same with SPDY, which was replaced by an actual web standard (HTTP2). Only Safari still ships it, but has marked it deprecated. - SVG Fonts were removed from the SVG spec. - HLS, JPEG-XL, HEIF/HEIC are essentially Safari-only as well. CSS hanging-punctuation and audio/video tracks are new features that haven't been widely implemented yet.
- fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
  Considering there's 2 browsers, 3 if we're being generous, basically every new feature is a bunch of X-only features that Y doesn't support.

al_be_back 1y ago

the IE6 lawsuit was about web browser monopoly, not a complaint for poor tech.

matheusmoreira 1y ago

The "standards" are now effectively controlled by Google.