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> This seems like Microsoft with IE6 all over again.

IE6 gave us XMLHttpRequest because they wanted it to build Outlook for the web. That seems like it turned out ok.

In general I think building browser-specific features, seeing what works, and only then standardizing is a much better path than starting with W3C.

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No it isn't. It leads to fragmentation of the platform, and pretty soon you'll start seeing "Works best in Chrome!" tags on websites, because developers are too lazy to implement fallback solutions where <portal> (or whatever other proprietary extension) isn't supported.

I already see them all the time, but this time dressed up as “please upgrade to a modern browser. But not Firefox. Not Safari. Definitely not Edge.”

Perhaps Edge. A recent version.

> IE6 gave us XMLHttpRequest because they wanted it to build Outlook for the web. That seems like it turned out ok.

That depends on one's definition of "ok". I don't think that modern web is ok.

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