Mastodawn

Crucifixion's a Doddle Aug 3, 2023

@aral we had this debate in the late 90s when Netscape 4 and IE4 implemented differing DOMs.

Ultimately, the w3c standard won out, but the browser wars, as intense as they were, were even less polarised than now. I do worry about this.

@drunkenmadman Chrome is the new IE.

AlexanderMars Aug 3, 2023

@aral @drunkenmadman Safari and it’s reluctantly adoption of standards and APIs is just as bad.

@AlexanderMars @aral @drunkenmadman

ZephyrXero Aug 3, 2023

Chrome is the new IE ...on desktop. And Safari is the IE of mobile

🅺🅸🅼 🆂🅲🅷🆄🅻🆉:~$ ▓Aug 3, 2023

@aral @drunkenmadman well at least chrome follows minor parts of the w3c specifications - IE was 100% broken

Crucifixion's a Doddle Aug 3, 2023

@aral I quite *liked* the IE4 document.all[] model. It felt elegant to me, and it was much easier to do dHTML in IE.

However, the businesses paying me to build their shit wanted to reach *everyone*, and that was higher priority than sparkly UI. And they were right.

Skyglobe Aug 3, 2023

@aral I would also add: if your educational blog needs JavaScript enabled to dismiss the (non-compliant) GDPR fullscreen "banner" with a huge "Accept all" button, a small "Manage preferences" with lots of "legitimate interests" and no "Reject all" banner then you are telling me to ban your website on my Pihole.

rastilin Aug 3, 2023

@skyglobe @aral

The blog probably doesn't even look at their tracking data. So they're annoying their users for nothing.

Luna

@aral I didn't even know this was possible, I always use Firefox myself. People who do this are maybe the same who use DIVs instead of semantic elements, type="text" on every input field etc. Sigh.

James House-Lantto (He/Him)Aug 3, 2023

@aral

I'm having Old-guy flashbacks to IE specific code and Netscape Navigator.... *shudders*

mike805 Aug 3, 2023

@aral If you really mean it, develop in Firefox, and test periodically in Chrome and Safari. I had to do that, and had to do two different implementations of saving files coming in via WebRTC.

@mike805 Yep, that’s already what I do.

All usual caveats regarding Mozilla and Apple stand. But beggars can’t be choosers. “At least it’s not as bad as it could be” is about the best we can hope for under extinction-stage capitalism.

mike805 Aug 3, 2023

@aral We can create alternatives.

Beko Pharm (deprecated)Aug 3, 2023

@mike805 @aral doing that.

Can't switch to FF because it is already my daily driver :P

Also: Here we go again 😩 Browser Wars Reloaded. This time the situation looks grim.

@bekopharm @mike805 @aral

rastilin Aug 3, 2023

I think we're at the point where we'll have one corporate internet with Google's new website DRM and a distributed 'geek' internet like the old days before AOL. Which, in some ways might be an improvement over the current 'public pool' system.

Alex

@rastilin @bekopharm @mike805 @aral

Basically like @ploum's article, https://ploum.net/2023-08-01-splitting-the-web.html

Splitting the Web

Splitting the Web par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.

rastilin Aug 3, 2023

@Ultra @bekopharm @mike805 @aral @ploum

I think this might be the first time I've read this, thanks for sharing it. It's definitely the next step, and he makes a good point, if you just stop going to spammy websites, they stop seeing you in their analytics and they eventually forget that you exist, as a customer. So their analytics and targeting gets increasingly dialed in to completely forget an increasingly larger group of people even exists at all.

mike805 Aug 3, 2023

@rastilin @bekopharm @aral That is fine with me too. If we had an area of the internet that requires a slight technical effort to get into, it would keep all the right people out.

vibhor 🍑 🏳️‍🌈Aug 3, 2023

@bekopharm @mike805 @aral i think google is winning this time !

Farshid Hakimy / فرشید Aug 3, 2023

@mike805 @aral I don't understand how y'all are testing on WebKit? Do you have Apple devices you test on?
I tried testing it with Epiphany but it's buggy and still different than Safari.

@farshidhakimy @mike805 Yeah, I have a couple of old Apple devices I use.

Farshid Hakimy / فرشید Aug 3, 2023

@aral @mike805 well how does Apple expect us to regularly test on WebKit if we don't have any Apple devices?
Chrome and Firefox have a Linux version and Edge uses the same rendering engine as Chrome (and they have a Linux version too). Epiphany doesn't seem to render Leaflet maps correctly and does still seem to be different than Safari. And the "stable" version doesn't even support things like blur while Safari does.

Giovanni Crisalfi Aug 3, 2023

@farshidhakimy @aral @mike805 they expect you to have apple devices. They don't consider the alternative

Camille Aug 3, 2023

@mike805 @aral

That's what I do too.

Reina

@mike805 @aral I do this, except I rarely test in Chrome and only test Safari on iOS because Apple be expensive and proprietary xD

mike805 Aug 4, 2023

@reina @aral If you have a Macbook but no iThing available, you can always download the iOS developer kit and use the emulator to see what your webpage looks like on an iThing. I had to do this to discover some very bad keyboard and scaling behavior.

Reina

Aug 4, 2023

@mike805 @aral I said the opposite. I don't test on Mac because I only have an iPhone to test on. Also, now it's no longer updated either, so yeah :/

QuasiMagia 🌀 マルコ Aug 3, 2023

@aral True.
Chrome is the new Internet Explorer, and it's also bad like the old IE

campx Aug 3, 2023

@aral Well don't worry. Most browsers underlies the same webkit engine nowadays

@campx Most browsers I see use Chromium under the hood. Which WebKit-based major browers are you thinking of other than Safari (and, to a far lesser degree) GNOME Web?

Skylar Caulfield

@aral @campx chromuim is based on WebKit

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_(browser_engine)

@skymtf @campx Blink is based on a fork of the WebCore component of WebKit.

Blink (browser engine) - Wikipedia

Julien Martlet 🚲📚 🥗 📷 💻Aug 3, 2023

@aral @skymtf @campx Folks, that was 12 years ago. They are nothing alike. Do you remember when Apple announced WebKit, which was itself a fork from KHTML, the rendering engine of the Konqueror web browser ? I do. Wouldn’t want to browse any modern website using that Konqueror though.

@julienmartlet @skymtf @campx Yep.

Alexander Sosedkin

@aral if you're developing websites that run, these aren't websites, these are apps

@monk https://ar.al/notes/the-documents-to-applications-continuum/

Aral Balkan — Sites vs. Apps defined: the Documents‐to‐Applications Continuum.

Fred Posner Aug 3, 2023

@aral amen

stux⚡️Aug 3, 2023

@aral Would be a bit weird if I designed websites for a browser that I do not use

These days I don’t even check in Chrome anymore

Kevin Karhan

@stux @aral Personally, if I was a #WebDev and not a principal opponent of #PopUps and #DarkPattern I'd specifically design a #PopUp and #Blocker to ban #Chrome from sites...

But I know this will rather get weaponized by the #advertising #Industry as yet another #AdblockerBlocker than anything...

Sakamotoryou Aug 3, 2023

@kkarhan @stux @aral IMO, I'm fine with ads but the absurd amount of ads and tracking ads are BS

Now, Google want to control from browser to every single request from user. So what's next, control the data in every single request?

/generations of web developers who didn't realize Internet Explorer was not the only web browser have entered the room/

Offbeatmammal Aug 3, 2023

@aral while Safari shits me in some respects, I love how Apple have stuck to their guns while Microsoft caved and made Edge into an even worse Chrome. Firefox used to be my go-to but I struggle with some of their UX/UI choices, but still have it installed for testing (and often go for days with it as my only open browser). DuckDuckGo and Brave are great for ad blocking but don't feel right for other reasons. Google played a long game and are now springing the trap

Skylar Caulfield

@Offbeatmammal @aral WebKit already supports web DRM

@skymtf @Offbeatmammal Yes, no trillion-dollar corporation is your friend.

Jack Yan (甄爵恩)Aug 3, 2023

@aral Bit like those designing primarily for IE back in the day.

Skylar Caulfield

@aral banks will 100% use web DRM to prevent users from using their site on system that are now Windows/Chrome, MacOS/Chrome or Android/Google certified. Even if its like .1% of fruad prevented. I also feel like this will be required for online payments as part of 3D Secure 3.0 in the emv spec. I feel like Foss software will be pretty much useless to 99% of people after this since you won't even be able to shop online.

🅺🅸🅼 🆂🅲🅷🆄🅻🆉:~$ ▓Aug 3, 2023

@aral sounds like we are heading back to the good old Internet Explorer days where almost every site had two versions - one for IE and one for functional browsers.

Dixzy Aug 3, 2023

@aral getting a little tired of the hysteria. If you develop websites for clients for the thing that holds … 70% of all web traffic you are destroying… JFC get a grip

@dzzyd “You’re being hysterical” he yells (of course he’s a he), arms flailing wildly. “JFC, get a grip!” he spurts, spraying spittle everywhere.

👋🤓

Dixzy Aug 4, 2023

@aral I’m not a man, I’m a mom, and you sound like a ridiculous child. Also, you’re a little bitch for blocking me just for disagreeing

Xavi Aug 3, 2023

@aral I can't favourite this enough. It drives me mad how many times I had to deal with privacy-invasive websites (coincidence?) that, even after forcing me to turn off all ad-blockers, they still forced me to use Ungoogled Chromium.