Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

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As long as web developers continue to create (app-)sites that only work in the latest versions of Chrome(and Chromium-ish) browsers, giving users little effective choice over what browsers they can use, this sort of abusive behaviour will continue. The sort of "feature-racing" that Google engages in is ultimately harmful for the open web. Mozilla struggles to keep up, Opera surrendered a while ago, and more recently, Microsoft seems to have already given up completely.

I feel like it's time we "hold the Web back" again. Leave behind the increasingly-walled-garden of "modern" appsites and their reliance on hostile browsers, and popularise simple HTML and CSS, with forms for interactivity, maybe even just a little JavaScript where absolutely necessary. Something that is usable with a browser like Dillo or Netsurf, or even one of the text-based ones. Making sites that are usable in more browsers than the top 2 (or 1) will weaken the amount of control that Google has, by allowing more browsers to appear and gain userbases.

This proposal would not accomplish what you intend. By slowing the adoption of open web technologies, developers and users would lean more heavily on mobile apps, which are also under Google's control considering Android's huge market share.

Developers who want to level the playing field need to develop sites that fully support Firefox and other browsers that are not based on Chromium. Users who want to see a more open web need to use Firefox and non-Chromium browsers, and complain to developers who don't properly support them.

I'm talking about the vast majority of things people use websites for, which do not need a webapp much less a mobile app.

I wish, but that's not what most people want. Hell, it's not what designers want. Thinking back to the Myspace days, people would have the worst websites imaginable. Granted, that was all done with little more than HTML and javascript, but I have little doubt what they would have done with things like HTML5 and even more javascript.

I have to agree with this.

The last decade or so has really reinforced to me that we all ignore or are ignorant of fundamental structural problems with most of the systems we rely on - with us wanting them to "just work."

We're all guilty of this, we just see it up close for the things that we're building and chide others who don't care. Meanwhile we ignore other fundamental structures of modern society.

There's got to be a balance between every website looking exactly the same and fading out of my memory with one identical hamburger menu after another and dancing babies on geocities.

Are there really that many popular extensions not available on Firefox? I may be just one anecdote, but I think I'm pretty typical, and I've found the transition to Firefox to be quite pleasant, and uneventful.

Popular - no. Essential - yes. Case in point - my bank (top 5 in my country) which uses Chrome plugin for security purposes, you need it to create digital signature. So once a year I HAVE to install Chrome (key expires every year) and then delete it. I've also found at least one payment processor not working in Firefox, my city portal for public transport and several small sites. The worrying thing is the trend - with Firefox share dropping below 10% recently it will be abandoned more and more.

In those cases, have you tried IE instead rather than installing Chrome?

Installing Chrome was strictly needed only for banking plugin. Didn't have a chance to check yet with a new Chrome-Edge but will definitely try it.

Firefox is really good.

My issue is with certain sites that typically either uses non standard Javascript apis that only work in blink or relies on non standard behavior of standard components (numeric form inputs was mentioned here yesterday).

It doesn't happen often but sometimes, when a website doesn't work, I switch to chrome and it works there.

HTML is not enough. It’s why templating languages / libraries were invented, and it’s why SPA’s are so popular. There’s a difference between “sites” and applications. The web has been trending toward supporting applications more and more for a very long time.

The only thing that will make people who want to preserve the content-web happy is if we split the protocols somehow, and that will never happen. This is not likely to change ever.

I havent had js on by default in years. Using a js enabled browser is a drastically worse experience.

suckless surf lest you enable js with a hotkey on a per-process basis if you really want it for something, but 90% of the time, I just close the tab that wants to waste my time.

I think we at HN have a particular responsibility to keep the web free and open. This really is an arms race and only those of us building the tech have the power curtail FAANG's overreach. It might me time to choose a side and firmly push your work toward open web friendly tech.

> [...] this sort of abusive behaviour will continue.

Can you elaborate what exactly is abusive behavior?

> [...] reliance on hostile browsers, [...]

What exactly is a hostile browser?

What is mentioned in the title of this article.

What article? The link is a github issue. And it's not like you referenced anything of that anyway. It's more like it just triggered you to output a general rant. So again: Care to elaborate?

> Making sites that are usable in more browsers than the top 2 (or 1) will weaken the amount of control that Google has

You do realize/remember that Google is also a search-engine company, one that only stands to benefit (in terms of increased capability of advertising targeting) from a web that's simpler, and therefore more machine-legible.

I’m not so sure about that. Google has the resources, a simpler web makes it easier for competitors, seems like google is already quite competent at machine reading just about everything, even sometimes things that you can’t fond/visit. Domination by web-apps is the equivalent to widening the moat.

It's fine for Google to benefit from things that everyone benefits from.

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