8 ms·

Ugh. Sounds like the next IE6 is here... Can't wait to log into a bank that demands I installed Chrome to use their new 'security' or some web apps that won't

by RyanZAG 13y ago

Ugh. Sounds like the next IE6 is here... Can't wait to log into a bank that demands I installed Chrome to use their new 'security' or some web apps that won't run in anything but Chrome.

pkulak 13y ago
This seems like more of a ChromeOS move to me, so that you can run native code on Atom and X86 machines. The knock on ChromeOS is always that it's "just a browser". I seriously doubt anyone is going to write their Etsy storefront in NaCl. The benefit here, of course, is that if someone does write the next Photoshop for ChromeOS machines, it should also run fine in OS X, Windows and Linux. Seems like a win for portability to me.
- vertis 13y ago
  On the other hand, I can imagine that there is a set of people that want to run client side and yet not expose even obfusticated javascript.
  - cliffbean 13y ago
    PNaCL and asm.js are roughly the same in terms of "exposing" the code in this sense. Both can be easily disassembled/prettified using readily tools readily available today.
- 0x0 13y ago
  That worked out well for Java.
  - ryanackley 13y ago
    No, but it did for Flash.
    - 0x0 13y ago
      Let's just say I'm pretty happy I'm not maintaining any products built with Flex/Air.
  - pkulak 13y ago
    No, but it did for LLVM.
  - csmuk 13y ago
    Ah yes. No one ever remembers JavaOS and what a shit crock that was.
chully 13y ago
Web apps that won't run in anything but chrome? There are already plenty. Picasa/Google+ photo editing for a start.
- pcwalton 13y ago
  Which is actually literally done by hardcoding "plus.google.com" into Chrome: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/chrome/renderer/chrome_content_renderer_client.cc&q=plus.google.com&sq=package:chromium&dr=C&l=830 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/c...
scottmp10 13y ago
I doubt Google wants to keep this Chrome-only. Just like SPDY, there isn't initially support on all platforms/browsers so you have to have a fallback. But if it catches on then you will see broader support over time.
- _prometheus 13y ago
  there is actually a fallback -- mentioned in the post: pepper.js (http://trypepperjs.appspot.com/ http://trypepperjs.appspot.com/)
- icefox 13y ago
  Having taken a good hard look at adding this to a non-chrome browser I can tell you it would not be a trivial task. You can't just take the code and re-use it elsewhere and re-inventing it would require constant catch up.
  - pekk 13y ago
    It seems that writing browsers is hard. Oh well, let's just continue using exactly the same javascript stack forever then.
spot 13y ago
IE6 did not have an open source implementation that others could adopt.
- bzbarsky 13y ago
  You can't adopt the implementation of PNaCL either. It depends on PPAPI, which itself depends on vast amounts of implementation details of Chromium. There's no real attempt to decouple them. People have in fact looked at what it would take to adopt PPAPI. The answer so far seems to be "you have to use Chromium, not another rendering engine".
melling 13y ago
The big difference, of course, is that you can be on any operating system with Chrome/Chromium. It's not ideal but that is huge. The "lockin" is no longer at the operating system.

by RyanZAG 13y ago

Ugh. Sounds like the next IE6 is here... Can't wait to log into a bank that demands I installed Chrome to use their new 'security' or some web apps that won't run in anything but Chrome.

pkulak 13y ago

This seems like more of a ChromeOS move to me, so that you can run native code on Atom and X86 machines. The knock on ChromeOS is always that it's "just a browser". I seriously doubt anyone is going to write their Etsy storefront in NaCl. The benefit here, of course, is that if someone does write the next Photoshop for ChromeOS machines, it should also run fine in OS X, Windows and Linux. Seems like a win for portability to me.

vertis 13y ago
On the other hand, I can imagine that there is a set of people that want to run client side and yet not expose even obfusticated javascript.
- cliffbean 13y ago
  PNaCL and asm.js are roughly the same in terms of "exposing" the code in this sense. Both can be easily disassembled/prettified using readily tools readily available today.
0x0 13y ago
That worked out well for Java.
- ryanackley 13y ago
  No, but it did for Flash.
  - 0x0 13y ago
    Let's just say I'm pretty happy I'm not maintaining any products built with Flex/Air.
- pkulak 13y ago
  No, but it did for LLVM.
- csmuk 13y ago
  Ah yes. No one ever remembers JavaOS and what a shit crock that was.

chully 13y ago

Web apps that won't run in anything but chrome? There are already plenty. Picasa/Google+ photo editing for a start.

pcwalton 13y ago
Which is actually literally done by hardcoding "plus.google.com" into Chrome: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/chrome/renderer/chrome_content_renderer_client.cc&q=plus.google.com&sq=package:chromium&dr=C&l=830 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/c...

scottmp10 13y ago

I doubt Google wants to keep this Chrome-only. Just like SPDY, there isn't initially support on all platforms/browsers so you have to have a fallback. But if it catches on then you will see broader support over time.

_prometheus 13y ago
there is actually a fallback -- mentioned in the post: pepper.js (http://trypepperjs.appspot.com/ http://trypepperjs.appspot.com/)
icefox 13y ago
Having taken a good hard look at adding this to a non-chrome browser I can tell you it would not be a trivial task. You can't just take the code and re-use it elsewhere and re-inventing it would require constant catch up.
- pekk 13y ago
  It seems that writing browsers is hard. Oh well, let's just continue using exactly the same javascript stack forever then.

spot 13y ago

IE6 did not have an open source implementation that others could adopt.

bzbarsky 13y ago
You can't adopt the implementation of PNaCL either. It depends on PPAPI, which itself depends on vast amounts of implementation details of Chromium. There's no real attempt to decouple them. People have in fact looked at what it would take to adopt PPAPI. The answer so far seems to be "you have to use Chromium, not another rendering engine".

melling 13y ago

The big difference, of course, is that you can be on any operating system with Chrome/Chromium. It's not ideal but that is huge. The "lockin" is no longer at the operating system.