5 ms·

I don't really like this, or at least how it sounds. 1. Google implements this 2. Chrome becomes the fastest browser by a wide margin 3. Other browsers die or

by swang 12y ago

I don't really like this, or at least how it sounds. 1. Google implements this 2. Chrome becomes the fastest browser by a wide margin 3. Other browsers die or become minor players 4. Google leverages this to enforce their own changes into the HTML/Javascript domain, "for the better" of the web and maybe even into mobile. 5. Web is broken unless you use Chrome The pain developers suffered before dealing with IE4-6 will be nothing to the repercussions we face now if we have to continue being backwards compatible with some version of Chrome because website X is "Chrome only" in the future. Hell it's already happened a bit with the new HTML5 features. Hell Korea is still paying for the mistakes of committing to go with IE. Feel like it ends up being Google's version of EEE. Also, keep in mind, this "SoundScript", even if its in the early stages, has not been declared as being open source, so it is closed source at the moment. This makes me feel that at best SoundScript will be open source like Android is open source. Release stuff but keep the latest version for Google to use.

krapp 12y ago
I've already encountered a number of sites which appear to only work in Chrome, so arguably that ship has already sailed.
zodiakzz 12y ago
Your comment is so unnecessarily cynical it made me giggle. You don't think like that in real life hopefully.
- swang 12y ago
  If you were not on the web from ~1998-2004, and then had to dig out of the glut of crap that IE4 dumped behind it from 2005-Now, you probably think this is cynical. It's merely considering the historical record of what happens when you allow one company to control the web. Why do people want an open web? Because if you allow one entity to gain too much influence, you become locked into their whims rather than what is best for the web.
  - stupidcar 12y ago
    I was on the web ~1998-2004, and I still think you're being cynical, and are just flat wrong on certain points: - V8 (and Chrome, via Chromium) is an open source project: https://github.com/v8/v8-git-mirror https://github.com/v8/v8-git-mirror . Try doing a search for 'use strong' in the V8 source and you will find that the code for this proposal is already open source, not "closed source at the moment". - Chrome is nowhere near the kind of market dominance that IE once enjoyed (> 90%), and there is no rational prospect of it ever reaching it, unless you believe Windows, OS X and iOS are about to disappear. Thus they will never enjoy the monopoly necessary to unilaterally introduce proprietary features. - Chrome auto-updates. In fact, it was the first mainstream browser to adopt this "evergreen" model (since adopted by Firefox and IE). This means that there are no concerns about maintaining backwards compatibility with "some version" of Chrome.
    - themartorana 12y ago
      > no concerns about maintaining backwards compatibility Actually, one of the reasons old IE versions persisted forever is because the enterprise rarely updates. Although I doubt there are many out there that use Chrome at all, they would most certainly block auto-updating, much as they used to block Windows Service Packs until they could be tested in-house - no matter how severe the vulnerabilities they patched.
magicalist 12y ago
> 1. Google implements this 2. Chrome becomes the fastest browser by a wide margin 3. Other browsers die or become minor players 4. Google leverages this to enforce their own changes into the HTML/Javascript domain, "for the better" of the web and maybe even into mobile. 5. Web is broken unless you use Chrome Er, you just made up five steps, none of which have happened yet, and then conclude that they sound like "Google's version of EEE". That's what happens when you make up a "Google's version of EEE" scenario" :) It's a proposed ES7+ addition being implemented behind a runtime flag. Can you be specific about what that has to do with Korean banking laws and destruction of the competitive browser landscape?
- swang 12y ago
  I missed the Q&A question about standardization, and that alleviates some of the concerns about how this will be play out. But again, the concern is that Google is going to go ahead with this even before any approval. So when every single javascript related product from Google is already using it, what's preventing Google from just shrugging and going "oh well" and just continuing on with their modifications? What is V8 for if not for Chrome (since V8 is not beholden to node/iojs)?
  - kbenson 12y ago
    Well, you can always look to past behavior, such as with SPDY[1]. Once something like SPDY was adopted as HTTP/2, Google decided on dropping SPDY support for Chrome. Their core complaints with HTTP were addressed in a new standard, so there's no reason for them to keep their specific variation alive and cluttering the browser landscape. 1: http://blog.chromium.org/2015/02/hello-http2-goodbye-spdy-http-is_9.html http://blog.chromium.org/2015/02/hello-http2-goodbye-spdy-ht...
- ddoolin 12y ago
  This is rough and maybe slightly off but the gist is that Korean banks (and other institutions) are required by law to use ActiveX and other IE-only technologies which had (has?) kept IE's browser share ridiculously high (with most on older versions). I lived there for a few years and worked with Macs. I was completely unable to access my bank account online. Even when I could log in on a Windows desktop, there's an extremely overly-complicated (and quite manual) certificate system also required.
shurcooL 12y ago
Differences between IE and Chrome: - IE has fixed versions, IE 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; Chrome autoupdates so there's only Chrome stable, Chrome beta, Chrome dev and Chrome canary. No need to hardcode IE6-specific hacks. - IE is closed source; Chrome is more open source.
- jimktrains2 12y ago
  > Chrome autoupdates so there's only Chrome stable, Chrome beta, Chrome dev and Chrome canary. I still see old versions of Chrome in my access logs fairly regularly. Don't kid yourself that everyone updates all the time. > - IE is closed source; Chrome is more open source. Chrome is not F/OSS, Chromium is.
- bzbarsky 12y ago
  Chrome autoupdates on desktop. On mobile, there are all sorts of old Chrome versions being shipped by various Android vendors and not getting updated at all.
- cozuya 12y ago
  IE autoupdates since IE10, which is frankly a huge event for our industry that very rarely gets recognized.
  - Already__Taken 12y ago
    They still lock feature versions in with windows releases so they don't get many brownie points for being able to auto update security patches.
  - grumblestumble 12y ago
    Except for the fact that it still moves at a glacial pace compared to the competition. Incremental IE10 updates do not include new CSS or Javascript functionality, that's limited to version releases - which is measured in years. Compare that to Chrome or Firefox, where new functionality lands every couple of weeks in stable.
    - 12y ago
ergothus 12y ago
You point out a legitimate risk. Most won't take it seriously, because google history goes more like: 1. Google announces New Great Way 2. Google implements 3. Early adopters jump on 4. Improvements are promised. 5. Languish 6. Google moves on Not universally true (NaCl and GWT followed this, SPDY didn't), but frequent enough that people aren't yet cautious.

by swang 12y ago

krapp 12y ago

I've already encountered a number of sites which appear to only work in Chrome, so arguably that ship has already sailed.

zodiakzz 12y ago

Your comment is so unnecessarily cynical it made me giggle. You don't think like that in real life hopefully.

swang 12y ago
If you were not on the web from ~1998-2004, and then had to dig out of the glut of crap that IE4 dumped behind it from 2005-Now, you probably think this is cynical. It's merely considering the historical record of what happens when you allow one company to control the web. Why do people want an open web? Because if you allow one entity to gain too much influence, you become locked into their whims rather than what is best for the web.
- stupidcar 12y ago
  I was on the web ~1998-2004, and I still think you're being cynical, and are just flat wrong on certain points: - V8 (and Chrome, via Chromium) is an open source project: https://github.com/v8/v8-git-mirror https://github.com/v8/v8-git-mirror . Try doing a search for 'use strong' in the V8 source and you will find that the code for this proposal is already open source, not "closed source at the moment". - Chrome is nowhere near the kind of market dominance that IE once enjoyed (> 90%), and there is no rational prospect of it ever reaching it, unless you believe Windows, OS X and iOS are about to disappear. Thus they will never enjoy the monopoly necessary to unilaterally introduce proprietary features. - Chrome auto-updates. In fact, it was the first mainstream browser to adopt this "evergreen" model (since adopted by Firefox and IE). This means that there are no concerns about maintaining backwards compatibility with "some version" of Chrome.
  - themartorana 12y ago
    > no concerns about maintaining backwards compatibility Actually, one of the reasons old IE versions persisted forever is because the enterprise rarely updates. Although I doubt there are many out there that use Chrome at all, they would most certainly block auto-updating, much as they used to block Windows Service Packs until they could be tested in-house - no matter how severe the vulnerabilities they patched.

magicalist 12y ago

> 1. Google implements this 2. Chrome becomes the fastest browser by a wide margin 3. Other browsers die or become minor players 4. Google leverages this to enforce their own changes into the HTML/Javascript domain, "for the better" of the web and maybe even into mobile. 5. Web is broken unless you use Chrome Er, you just made up five steps, none of which have happened yet, and then conclude that they sound like "Google's version of EEE". That's what happens when you make up a "Google's version of EEE" scenario" :) It's a proposed ES7+ addition being implemented behind a runtime flag. Can you be specific about what that has to do with Korean banking laws and destruction of the competitive browser landscape?

swang 12y ago
I missed the Q&A question about standardization, and that alleviates some of the concerns about how this will be play out. But again, the concern is that Google is going to go ahead with this even before any approval. So when every single javascript related product from Google is already using it, what's preventing Google from just shrugging and going "oh well" and just continuing on with their modifications? What is V8 for if not for Chrome (since V8 is not beholden to node/iojs)?
- kbenson 12y ago
  Well, you can always look to past behavior, such as with SPDY[1]. Once something like SPDY was adopted as HTTP/2, Google decided on dropping SPDY support for Chrome. Their core complaints with HTTP were addressed in a new standard, so there's no reason for them to keep their specific variation alive and cluttering the browser landscape. 1: http://blog.chromium.org/2015/02/hello-http2-goodbye-spdy-http-is_9.html http://blog.chromium.org/2015/02/hello-http2-goodbye-spdy-ht...
ddoolin 12y ago
This is rough and maybe slightly off but the gist is that Korean banks (and other institutions) are required by law to use ActiveX and other IE-only technologies which had (has?) kept IE's browser share ridiculously high (with most on older versions). I lived there for a few years and worked with Macs. I was completely unable to access my bank account online. Even when I could log in on a Windows desktop, there's an extremely overly-complicated (and quite manual) certificate system also required.

shurcooL 12y ago

Differences between IE and Chrome: - IE has fixed versions, IE 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; Chrome autoupdates so there's only Chrome stable, Chrome beta, Chrome dev and Chrome canary. No need to hardcode IE6-specific hacks. - IE is closed source; Chrome is more open source.

jimktrains2 12y ago
> Chrome autoupdates so there's only Chrome stable, Chrome beta, Chrome dev and Chrome canary. I still see old versions of Chrome in my access logs fairly regularly. Don't kid yourself that everyone updates all the time. > - IE is closed source; Chrome is more open source. Chrome is not F/OSS, Chromium is.
bzbarsky 12y ago
Chrome autoupdates on desktop. On mobile, there are all sorts of old Chrome versions being shipped by various Android vendors and not getting updated at all.
cozuya 12y ago
IE autoupdates since IE10, which is frankly a huge event for our industry that very rarely gets recognized.
- Already__Taken 12y ago
  They still lock feature versions in with windows releases so they don't get many brownie points for being able to auto update security patches.
- grumblestumble 12y ago
  Except for the fact that it still moves at a glacial pace compared to the competition. Incremental IE10 updates do not include new CSS or Javascript functionality, that's limited to version releases - which is measured in years. Compare that to Chrome or Firefox, where new functionality lands every couple of weeks in stable.
  - 12y ago

ergothus 12y ago

You point out a legitimate risk. Most won't take it seriously, because google history goes more like: 1. Google announces New Great Way 2. Google implements 3. Early adopters jump on 4. Improvements are promised. 5. Languish 6. Google moves on Not universally true (NaCl and GWT followed this, SPDY didn't), but frequent enough that people aren't yet cautious.