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Comment by msandford | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure that there's a lot of that going on, yes.

But Google has the legacy of their "don't be evil" company motto to content with. Which is to say that people expect (foolishly) for them to at least try not to appear evil.

The difference between Google prioritizing Chrome vs anyone else is that Google owns Chrome whereas Apple doesn't, and some random startup certainly doesn't.

It smells of Microsoft's "we'll only make this work in IE and fuck everyone else" strategy and that doesn't bring other warm thoughts to mind.

So it's not JUST that it's fashionable to think the worst of Google these days.

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Google Chrome is the only browser running Google's own V8, a very bleeding edge piece of technology. Google is working on things like browser-based material design and persistent connections. Things which Inbox uses.

Providing backwards and parallel compatibility is a secondary concern.

"Providing backwards and parallel compatibility is a secondary concern."

And this is exactly why people are worried about things like this. Google has, depending on who you ask, somewhere between a quarter and a half of all desktop browser usage share. They're the browser shipped by default with Android nowadays, and Android is a big part of the mobile and tablet market these days. By the same token, Google is a huge part of the Internet -- Google runs many of the most popular sites, and is also probably the single-largest source of referral traffic for the vast majority of websites.

And now, you're saying that Google views pushing the bleeding edge in the browser for its browser-based applications is more important to Google than being compatible with other browser implementations. And you wonder why people are starting to worry about Google?

Apple is doing the same thing for icloud.com on mobile browsers. Only works on mobile Safari AFAIK.

Yes, but Apple never talked about how interoperability was important for them. Apple has always been a walled garden, like it or leave it.

Google, on the other hand, has done a lot for open standards and interoperability.

Is it unreasonable for people to flip out on Inbox while it's still very much in beta? Sure. If it's a real beta. Gmail was in beta for what, 5 years?

Does Google have any obligation -- moral or otherwise -- to make Inbox work cross-browser? None whatsoever.

But them not doing so would constitute a break from past policy which is something that people are worried about.

Why is picking one browser to get their product tested and working on first (that they happen to own) such a big deal?

These comments really are just FUD and hating (jealousy?) on Google for ignorant reasons.

So Mozilla is "some random startup"?

You might have an argument if Chrome wasn't open source.

Being that is not the case...

Chromium is open source, Chrome is not.

How does open source invalidate that argument?

Anyone can build and release a compatible browser whereas one would be stuck with Internet Explorer (and no compatible browser) if something were only to work on IE.

As it stands, Chromium exists.

How is it any better that something can run on a bunch of slightly different versions of Chromium, but no other browsers built from a different base?

Chrome isn't the only option. It is not a case where it could be Microsoft making Hotmail only work in IE, for example.

Don't want Google's services in your browser? Download Chromium or the dozens of other browsers forked from that codebase.

With something being limited to working in IE, THERE IS NOTHING ELSE, binary or otherwise.

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