>Outside the Microsoft Edge browser, users of other browsers on Windows PCs sometimes face inconsistent feature-sets and performance/battery-life across device types. Some browsers have had slower-progress to embrace new Windows capabilities like touch and ARM processors. As you know, we’ve recently started making contributions that provide these types of hardware support to Chromium-based browsers, and we believe that this approach can be generalized: we think we can help to accelerate the web and users’ experience of it by contributing new capabilities to Chromium open source for the benefit of all these browsers and users.
Disappointing that all big players want to contribute to Chromium code base but not Gecko, which is left solely in the hands of Mozilla and presumably is going to find it tougher and tougher to simply keep up with Chromium/Skia/Blink etc.
At the same time I see they are doing a lot of experimentation with Rust and Servo - the way I see it - it would be harder to do that kind of experimentation across companies. They have the chance to do radical stuff and show that Rust/Servo investments actually pay off in the real world.
I believe Mozilla is not going to attempt to play catch up, as if they need to catch up to others, but to become more resilient, unique and dependable. They won't concern themselves with what others are doing and, instead, concentrate on technical proficiency and usability (and privacy). Firefox will not be going away.
While market share may be lower, they will always have millions and millions of users who will continue to love it.
> Disappointing that all big players want to contribute to Chromium code base but not Gecko
to be fair, and as much as I like FF, the Chromium codebase seems much cleaner and much more amenable to external contributions (thanks to its KHTML roots, no doubt :-) ). The FF codebase really feels like something that badly transitioned from C to C++ (and now to Rust !), while the chromium had a mostly coherent C++ design from the very beginning.
I read a story elsewhere about this. That author was guessing that this is really all about Electron. Electron apps are becoming a big deal on Windows (even from Microsoft).
It's not just fear of Google and Chromium beating EdgeHTML that's driving this. It's also Apple and their iDevices.
This allows them to bring Edge to parity with Chrome, and by building their own features and proposals on top of that they regain the ability to drive standards.
But they can also errode Apple's moat by supporting web standards and deep device/native integration better than Safari, which lags chromium in standards support.
>> our unique web-platform codebase still faces occasional compatibility problems as web developers focus less on HTML standards and rationally focus on widely used platforms like Chrome to develop and validate experiences for their customers
IMHO this is not rational on the part of web developers. If they've forgotten the lessons of IE-6 they need to have a refresher and stick to standards. If that means sticking to a subset of the standards that are supported by all browsers then so be it - stop thinking about yourself and your immediate desire (it's not a need after all) and think about the future and your users.
I'm just finishing up a year+ project to make an old IE7 app work on Chrome/Firefox. IE7 is the oldest version that IE11 supports in compatability mode. As it stood, this old app was actually quite impressive. It was a true SPA before SPAs were a thing (2005 or so). It used all the Microsoft specific tech; DHTML, behaviors, htc components, soap/xml, client side xpath/xsl/xslt. Thankfully only a little activex that was easy to replace. Rewriting wasn't an option, but even putting in shims and reorganizing the code was a major effort.
Realistically, that's a worst case scenario, and I think it would be a long time before firefox/Chrome diverged to that level, if at all.
As a web developer who was constantly warning people of the dangers of overreliance on IE6 back in the day, I'm not convinced that the developers were the problem.
I couldn't care less for the Edge UI (IMHO it is a poor clone of Chrome) but seeing MS's browser engine open-sourced would've been far more interesting --- even if it's only IE6.
Last week: “If Microsoft really cared about open source, they’d deprecate Edge, adopt an open-source browser, and work to get improvements pushed upstream.”
Today: “If Microsoft really cared about open source, they’d release the source for Edge.”
Can you remember a time when we had better web browsers than today? For sure there's some anxiety about the future, but isn't the browser situation today better than it's ever been?
i disagree. in my opinion we don't need more browsers. what we need is a single browser/platform where companies and individuals can compete while developing various features.
think of it like this: instead of a browser vendor implementing a feature and then the rest playing catch-up, that same feature will now be available for most users, no matter who has developed it.
im old enough to remember the browser wars, and this just feels like another crack at the same pinata...Microsoft ultimately refuses to give customers a choice in the matter of browsers and is simply reskinning a copy of chrome out of desperation to keep customers clicking through their product, not googles.
I expect microsoft to release their rebuild of Edge, which will override all user preferences for chrome, advertise itself on the lock screen, and come bolted on with a ton of features and extensions no one asked for because Redmond couldnt help themselves.
My best case scenario would be for Chromium codebase to be donated and governed by a board of non-profit organisation ( why not WHATWG ), which includes the major players in the field.
Doing this would be far more safe in terms of having at least some method for controlling what the engine will look like other than "hope Google don't, hope Google do..."
The only way that I can feel a bit safe when a browser engine dominates ~90% of browser base.
Everyone saying this is a repeat of history with Chromium as the new IE6 aren't remembering their history very well.
When IE6 initially came out it was the best browser around, with excellent standards support for its time.
It only became the horror it's remembered as today because then Microsoft just didn't update it, so a once first-in-class browser became a backwards compatibility nightmare everyone had to support.
I don't see how the same situation could repeat itself. If Google or Microsoft ever decides to just drop Chromium for whatever reason the code this time around is open, so someone else can just pick it up, and users can migrate to that.
The main problem with IE6 was that users couldn't do that, there was a decade of legacy apps that had grown to require IE6-specific features.
"our unique web-platform codebase still faces occasional compatibility problems as web developers focus less on HTML standards and rationally focus on widely used platforms like Chrome to develop and validate experiences for their customers."
IMO, it was quite opposite in my experience. Website following HTML standards worked as intended on other browsers.
It's more than just the browser's CSS, rendering, and js.
There's an ecosystem around browsers: web extensions (Google store), debugging tools, canary versions, sandboxes/security etc etc.
MS is trying to build that ecosystem for Edge. But it is slow going. A big advantage of changing to Chromium might be to fit into the existing ecosystem.
I really think the alarm about Edge adopting Chromium is silly. Microsoft is more than capable of forking the project, so using it does not give Google more control over the web.
What exactly do people think is going to happen? If Google starts doing strange things thinking they can because "everyone uses Chromium", then downstream just won't adopt those changes, and then there will be two Chromiums. All the panic about a Google "monopoly" of the web is absurd. Google lost the ability to do anything like that the moment they open sourced the project.
I think the gist is that Mozilla and Firefox are in peril. This worsens that peril at a time when MS could become a patron of Mozilla and Firefox and have a chance at launching a shot across Google’s bow.
All that said, I’m surprised nobody is talking about Apple in all of this as they have a huge portion of the mobile browser share.
...until you open a website in Firefox [0] and you're greeted by the message "This website requires Chrome" or some such.
Except if the website doesn't even warn visitors, and just breaks silently.
[0] Or Safari and minor Webkit browsers. I hate Apple's stubbornness sometimes, but here's where their focus on resource usage puts an obstacle to browser monopoly, for now.
I don't understand the Firefox trend. It was good years ago. It's time to move on. Having one rendering engine is much better than having a lot of disparate features splitted across various engines.
Maybe, but only if that rendering engine isn't heavily controlled by one company. Sure you can fork Chrome, if you don't like where Google is going, but then you're back to having multiple rendering engines.
Currently I'm not sure that Google is the very best steward of "The One and Only" rendering engine. Being a commercial enterprise, Google may also have commercial interest that doesn't not always work in favour of the user. The Chrome rendering engine is NEVER going to have anti-tracking features for instance.
Edit: Let's not forget the security implications. A bug in Chrome/Blink will allow attackers to target 90% of the web, that's dangerous.
Generate a html table (don't use html tables) with 500.000 x 500.000 elements containing short random strings. Put an element on the page that is locked to vertical and horizontal scrolling. Scroll away and watch the difference in FF and Chrome (both browser will have difficulties but one of them is usable).
Why throw that away? I heavily disagree that one rendering engine would be preferable.
I really like to use Chrome but it is opinionated. Bad image quality for scaled images for example. Do not like.
I am no web developer, I think someone could give you more details.
That's without even counting that Google get to decide on what can be experimented upon and what can't. You probably don't want a single company to decide this.
[+] [-] dao-|7 years ago|reply
related MS blog post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18619774
[+] [-] Santosh83|7 years ago|reply
Disappointing that all big players want to contribute to Chromium code base but not Gecko, which is left solely in the hands of Mozilla and presumably is going to find it tougher and tougher to simply keep up with Chromium/Skia/Blink etc.
[+] [-] rubber_duck|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sureaboutthis|7 years ago|reply
While market share may be lower, they will always have millions and millions of users who will continue to love it.
[+] [-] jcelerier|7 years ago|reply
to be fair, and as much as I like FF, the Chromium codebase seems much cleaner and much more amenable to external contributions (thanks to its KHTML roots, no doubt :-) ). The FF codebase really feels like something that badly transitioned from C to C++ (and now to Rust !), while the chromium had a mostly coherent C++ design from the very beginning.
[+] [-] criddell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Flenser|7 years ago|reply
This allows them to bring Edge to parity with Chrome, and by building their own features and proposals on top of that they regain the ability to drive standards.
But they can also errode Apple's moat by supporting web standards and deep device/native integration better than Safari, which lags chromium in standards support.
[+] [-] phkahler|7 years ago|reply
IMHO this is not rational on the part of web developers. If they've forgotten the lessons of IE-6 they need to have a refresher and stick to standards. If that means sticking to a subset of the standards that are supported by all browsers then so be it - stop thinking about yourself and your immediate desire (it's not a need after all) and think about the future and your users.
[+] [-] le-mark|7 years ago|reply
Realistically, that's a worst case scenario, and I think it would be a long time before firefox/Chrome diverged to that level, if at all.
But the horror, oh the horror....
[+] [-] dragonwriter|7 years ago|reply
It's quite rational.
> If they've forgotten the lessons of IE-6 they need to have a refresher and stick to standards.
I think you have an unreasonable view of what “the lessons of IE-6” for web developers are.
[+] [-] criddell|7 years ago|reply
There are standards, and then there are standards.
Ideally, de jure standards would rule the day but in practice de facto standards often win.
[+] [-] _ea1k|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Timpy|7 years ago|reply
https://xkcd.com/1726/
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] expertentipp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dana321|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tannhaeuser|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] userbinator|7 years ago|reply
I couldn't care less for the Edge UI (IMHO it is a poor clone of Chrome) but seeing MS's browser engine open-sourced would've been far more interesting --- even if it's only IE6.
[+] [-] WalterGR|7 years ago|reply
Last week: “If Microsoft really cared about open source, they’d deprecate Edge, adopt an open-source browser, and work to get improvements pushed upstream.”
Today: “If Microsoft really cared about open source, they’d release the source for Edge.”
[+] [-] mscasts|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] criddell|7 years ago|reply
Can you remember a time when we had better web browsers than today? For sure there's some anxiety about the future, but isn't the browser situation today better than it's ever been?
[+] [-] kmlx|7 years ago|reply
think of it like this: instead of a browser vendor implementing a feature and then the rest playing catch-up, that same feature will now be available for most users, no matter who has developed it.
edit: spelling
[+] [-] nimbius|7 years ago|reply
I expect microsoft to release their rebuild of Edge, which will override all user preferences for chrome, advertise itself on the lock screen, and come bolted on with a ton of features and extensions no one asked for because Redmond couldnt help themselves.
[+] [-] drinchev|7 years ago|reply
Doing this would be far more safe in terms of having at least some method for controlling what the engine will look like other than "hope Google don't, hope Google do..."
The only way that I can feel a bit safe when a browser engine dominates ~90% of browser base.
[+] [-] avar|7 years ago|reply
When IE6 initially came out it was the best browser around, with excellent standards support for its time.
It only became the horror it's remembered as today because then Microsoft just didn't update it, so a once first-in-class browser became a backwards compatibility nightmare everyone had to support.
I don't see how the same situation could repeat itself. If Google or Microsoft ever decides to just drop Chromium for whatever reason the code this time around is open, so someone else can just pick it up, and users can migrate to that.
The main problem with IE6 was that users couldn't do that, there was a decade of legacy apps that had grown to require IE6-specific features.
[+] [-] Abishek_Muthian|7 years ago|reply
IMO, it was quite opposite in my experience. Website following HTML standards worked as intended on other browsers.
[+] [-] OliverJones|7 years ago|reply
There's an ecosystem around browsers: web extensions (Google store), debugging tools, canary versions, sandboxes/security etc etc.
MS is trying to build that ecosystem for Edge. But it is slow going. A big advantage of changing to Chromium might be to fit into the existing ecosystem.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jbk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tree_of_item|7 years ago|reply
What exactly do people think is going to happen? If Google starts doing strange things thinking they can because "everyone uses Chromium", then downstream just won't adopt those changes, and then there will be two Chromiums. All the panic about a Google "monopoly" of the web is absurd. Google lost the ability to do anything like that the moment they open sourced the project.
[+] [-] codezero|7 years ago|reply
All that said, I’m surprised nobody is talking about Apple in all of this as they have a huge portion of the mobile browser share.
[+] [-] dictum|7 years ago|reply
Except if the website doesn't even warn visitors, and just breaks silently.
[0] Or Safari and minor Webkit browsers. I hate Apple's stubbornness sometimes, but here's where their focus on resource usage puts an obstacle to browser monopoly, for now.
[+] [-] leeoniya|7 years ago|reply
They made the obvious choice (for them) based on market share
[+] [-] OliverJones|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dimillian|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chii|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrweasel|7 years ago|reply
Currently I'm not sure that Google is the very best steward of "The One and Only" rendering engine. Being a commercial enterprise, Google may also have commercial interest that doesn't not always work in favour of the user. The Chrome rendering engine is NEVER going to have anti-tracking features for instance.
Edit: Let's not forget the security implications. A bug in Chrome/Blink will allow attackers to target 90% of the web, that's dangerous.
[+] [-] raxxorrax|7 years ago|reply
Why throw that away? I heavily disagree that one rendering engine would be preferable.
I really like to use Chrome but it is opinionated. Bad image quality for scaled images for example. Do not like.
I am no web developer, I think someone could give you more details.
[+] [-] ivanche|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Yoric|7 years ago|reply
If you look at the longer term, though, that's not true anymore.
I wrote a few things on the topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664053
That's without even counting that Google get to decide on what can be experimented upon and what can't. You probably don't want a single company to decide this.
[+] [-] auiya|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geolgau|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hvs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] navlelo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dbrgn|7 years ago|reply
(Still, it would have been nice if Microsoft would have chosen Gecko instead...)
[+] [-] simonh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phponpcp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huyzz|7 years ago|reply