Comment by dmitriid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmitriid | Hacker News Reader

This reeks of "oops we're sorry" described by Johnathan Nightingale (former General Manager and Vice President of the Firefox group) in his thread on how Google was sabotaging Mozilla: https://archive.vn/tgIH9 (or direct link, https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871237240852480)

- "I'm sorry for the misrepresentation of Safari Tech Preview's compatibility score".

This was intentional. Show these numbers at a large dev summit. Post an apology on a personal blog a week later.

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29228083 (the mistake was noted before the summit, but wasn't even mentioned)

- "it stated that Safari had jumped from a score of 64 => 85, when in fact what we should have had on the slide is is 64 => 92."

Yup. It still shows 86

- "I hadn't seen any negative press or negative developer sentiment to this slide, but it clearly irked the Safari team."

Any negative news presented by Chrome team is uncritically taken at face value and accepted as truth. This is very well known to the Chrome team and they are very happy to exploit this.

- "Compatibility is a shared ecosystem problem. It makes no sense to me that we try and score 1-up points on Compatibility. Just because one browser might be on spec, it also means that same browser might also not be interoperable with other browsers and this means that developers have to deal with the difference irrespective if a browser is "technically correct""

Chrome should stop pretending they are good guys. They are not. They keep implementing increasingly Chrome-only APIs and ignoring any and all concerns about those APIs from Firefox and Safari. They couldn't care less if Chrome wasn't interoperable with other browsers because in their minds Chrome has already won.

- "Longer term, I'm going to be directing my teams to focus more on broad browser support in our work and less on newer Chrome-first (/only?) features and I think our wider story should all be based on what users have today, and less on what they might support at some point in the future."

This will never happen. "You have to run twice as fast just to keep up with Chrome" is an insanely successful strategy for Chrome. If anything, Chrome-only work will only accelerate.

I think the number of API's we add to the platform will always keep increasing. We certainly see a big part of the web as enabling Apps to come to the web, and we do make sure (now) to have developers committing to using those APIs. I know that also frustrates a lot of people too.

It's sad that it's got the point where the teams don't trust each other and it's clear that the perception is wider. I'm still hoping to change that around.

I wrote the post to as clearly as possible document what happened for the avoidance of doubt because it was me who made the mistake. I'll accept your point of view, but I'm also comfortable with my side of this.

I've nothing against Chrome developers, but if you think honestly about the web and Google, would it not be true that:

- after Chrome was introduced, the web has gone from a healthy and steadily improving ecosystem to a monoculture?

- cross browser compatibility has gone from steadily increasing as IE was replaced by other browsers to declining as people are testing only in Chrome

- if Chrome "wins" it will it not be a matter of months before Google "unfortunately" have to cripple the extensions API?

- do you really think that the development of new features in Chrome will continue at its current speed if Chrome "wins" or do you think it will be put on hold like IE6? (Remember, Google unlike Microsoft is famous for killing projects people love.)

You don't have to answer me, but think about it.

You are probably good people with good intentions, but isn't it a fair chance that you are getting used by management to do something you'd rather not have on your resume: killing the free and open web?

> - cross browser compatibility has gone from steadily increasing as IE was replaced by other browsers to declining as people are testing only in Chrome

The irony of highlighting this is that the subject for this story is a cross-browser test suite and the issue was that Chrome, Firefox, and Safari were more compatible than the published numbers suggested.

There will always be cross browser bugs and so developers will always need to test everywhere, but the more mainstream features have compatibility rates like this in the first place the less often "works only in browser x" happens by accident.

Good catch. That said I'm just trying to reach out to the Web and Chrome Developer relations lead, and this seemed like as good a chance as I'd get.

Heh - It's hard to answer these questions when they are posited as loaded questions so clearly :D

I don't think it's about Google or Chrome winning. I believe Google is pretty clear that a healthy and open web where anyone is able to freely publish, monetize and consume content, as well as build and use apps is important for it's business and success. I think Google has a part to play in the success of the web, I think I can help be a force for good in the success of the web, however we're just parts of the ecosystem whole and the web will be around still long after Google.

I don't believe new features in Chrome will ever stop because we still believe the web should be able to do everything that other platforms can do and we want to keep offering that to people.

> I believe Google is pretty clear that a healthy and open web where anyone is able to freely publish, monetize and consume content, as well as build and use apps is important for its business and success.

This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time on HN. Coming from a Chrome DevRel I can't understand if it's irony, because you can't possibly believe this.

Google is an online advertising company. 80% of Google's money comes from online advertising. An open web where everyone can do what they please is an existential threat to the company you work for. And for the past many, many years Google has done a lot of things to tighten its control over the web.

I mean, with all the recent news about AMP from just last week, how can you possibly say that "Google wants everyone to publish and monetise freely".

> I think I can help be a force for good in the success of the web, however we're just parts of the ecosystem whole

There's no "ecosystem whole", and Google is doing everything in its power to make sure that there's even less of an ecosystem.

I know we're not going to agree. I know Google is advertising as major source of revenue. I also believe that it can only successful advertise through its search because the web is open and needs to stay that way.

The existence of AMP alone (and what Google did with it) invalidates your statements entirely.

> I think the number of API's we add to the platform will always keep increasing.

The problem isn't the the number of APIs per se (though I agree that it's unsustainable [1][2]).

It's how they get forced onto the web by Chrome.

- Implementing Chrome's internal API and pushing them to stable, and pretending they are a web standard? Check (Example: Web HID, original "spec" couldn't be understood by Mozilla engineers, updated "spec" was published two months after Chrome enabled it by default and published an article on web.dev)

- Ignoring Mozilla and Safari concerns on an API, enabling in stable because Google's own projects want them, and refusing to bring it back under flag? Check (Constructible Stylesheets, in the end Safari refused to implement them, period)

- Gaslighting other browser vendors through any means possible to an audience of thousands? Check (Alex Russel and the likes of him)

And that's off the top of me head, too late here where I am going through dozens and dozens of such instances I saved to document in a blog post one day.

> It's sad that it's got the point where the teams don't trust each other and it's clear that the perception is wider. I'm still hoping to change that around.

I will quote John Nightingale [3]

--- start quote ---

The question is not whether individual sidewalk labs people have pure motives. I know some of them, just like I know plenty on the Chrome team. They’re great people. But focus on the behaviour of the organism as a whole. At the macro level, google/alphabet is very intentional.

--- end quote ---

All this is very intentional behaviour that has been going on for years. No wonder Safari team is pissed.

[1] https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/07/stop_pushin...

[2] https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope....

[3] https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871251023278080

Minor aside: Alex is currently a PM on Edge https://twitter.com/slightlylate

(I also don't know what you're referring to with the "Gaslighting" comment)

Yup. The moment he went to Microsoft his tune changed and now Google is a bad guy, too: https://infrequently.org/2021/07/hobsons-browser/

His twitter (often) and website (infrequently) is full of claiming Safari is bad, Safari is holding the web back, Safari is the evil browser etc. While of course ignoring all the issues in Chrome (until going to MS).

And he's not alone.

FWIW I work at Google (speaking only for myself) and think https://infrequently.org/2021/07/hobsons-browser/ was a good post. It points out problems with Google's approach that I am happy to see more discussion of, and in most cases I agree with him.

Appreciate you adding this extra information in (also hey! on Twitter).

I don't have much to add, I understand it and I don't disagree with the frustration you have, because it's also not the first time I've heard it from many developers.

I'll keep working with the team to improve it, but it certainly takes time.

In a couple of years I expect FE requirements to list "ChromeOS development in X years" instead of plain Web skills.

This seems overly cynical. Did you read the post? The anxiety there seems genuine to me.

If it really was intentional, then either the author is a sociopath, or I'm an easy mark. But I'd prefer to believe neither of those are the case.

> This seems overly cynical. Did you read the post?

I did. I've also read and seen a lot of what Google and Chrome have been doing for the past few years.

And, to quote John Nightingale (do read his thread):

--- start quote ---

The question is not whether individual sidewalk labs people have pure motives. I know some of them, just like I know plenty on the Chrome team. They’re great people. But focus on the behaviour of the organism as a whole. At the macro level, google/alphabet is very intentional

--- end quote ---

Totally agree with that sentiment for group decisions (e.g. decisions on which APIs to support) but this is a blog post from an individual talking about their mistakes as an individual. They get my benefit of the doubt.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com