
The State of Web Browsers – 2019 edition - zwliew
https://ferdychristant.com/the-state-of-web-browsers-88224d55b4e6
======
millstone
This article celebrates the proposition that "Almost every user will
experience websites the way they were intended to be experienced." I doubt
this is a good thing.

I enable Safari or Firefox Reader View. I no longer "experience websites the
way they were intended to be experienced." Because it's way, way better! When
will Chrome implement a reader mode? Dumb question: they barely snuck it in on
Android and drag their feet everywhere else.

Browsers may be the user's ally or adversary. We know which one Chrome is.
Microsoft has one hell of an opportunity here - not in a financial sense, but
in a way that could greatly benefit Windows users.

~~~
npunt
Very good point, and 100% agree.

Browsers need to be on the side of users, if only because authors are
demonstrably terrible at user experience.

This isn't just because there's intrusive, bright/colorful/motion ads
everywhere (though that's part of it). It's because authors suck at font
choice, text size, line length, line height, text/background color & contrast,
reflow across device sizes, and all the other basics of written content.

Browsers need to also do things like:

\- make content more accessible to people with visual impairments and other
disabilities

\- filter out content that doesn't need to be loaded

\- translate content into your language

\- make content appear consistent across sites and according to your
preference (e.g. most recently, dark mode)

\- protect users from malicious content

\- bake in standard functionality like sharing & bookmarks

A necessary feature of browsers should be 'render the author's intent
faithfully', but that's by no means sufficient in today's browser market.
_Browsers are translators of content_ , both figuratively and literally.
They're a window to another world, but also your guide. We need a guide we can
trust, something that's on our side.

~~~
zzo38computer
I agree that authors suck at font choice, text size, line length, line height,
text/background color & contrast, etc. I generally do not specify any in
documents I write, instead the client will render the document according to
the user settings; this also reduces the file size. (In fact, I would even
want to ensure most of them will work on Lynx, too.) (Also, many thing I write
I use plain ASCII text files anyways; that is far more portable than HTML
anyways)

It need on the side of users not only because authors are demonstrably
terrible at user experience, but also the user may wish to override anything.

------
petilon
What the author is missing is that Google is not forever the owner of the
dominant browser engine, and in fact, if Microsoft executes well, they might
well take control of Chromium in a few short years. All Microsoft has to do is
persuade Windows users that the new Chromium-based Edge (CEdge) is so good
that it is no longer necessary to download Chrome. Because of Microsoft's
still-dominant position on the desktop, CEdge will become the most popular web
browser. At that point Microsoft can fork Chromium and now they own the
dominant engine! Google did this to Apple when they forked Webkit and now
Microsoft can do it to Google.

In fact, Google is doing everything they can to help Microsoft do this.
Consider the fact that logging into Gmail from Chrome logs you into Chrome.
(Yes, there is an option to disable this but that's a fake non-functioning
option.) If Microsoft offers better privacy--and they will--CEdge will be the
preferred browser in no time!

~~~
scarface74
\- 63% of browsing is done on mobile. Having a dominant position on the
desktop doesn’t mean much.

[https://www.stonetemple.com/mobile-vs-desktop-usage-
study/](https://www.stonetemple.com/mobile-vs-desktop-usage-study/)

If people cared about privacy, they wouldn’t be using Facebook of anything
Google made.

~~~
phishfi
> If people cared about privacy, they wouldn’t be using Facebook of anything
> Google made.

Except both of those companies still track your activity across the web, with
or without an account... In order to care about privacy, a user has to do a
hell of a lot more than just not use any of these invasive services.

~~~
scarface74
The other half of the equation is an ad blocker....

iOS has a built in content blocking framework that other developers can plug
into

The content blockers submit rules to iOS that Safari uses - the ad blocker
doesn’t have access to your browsing history.

------
Jaruzel
Ten+ years ago, we derided Microsoft for having a dominant position by
bundling IE on the Windows desktop, and the resultant 'This site is best
viewed in IE' banners all over the web. As Chrome/Google are now in the same
position, are we now heading for a resurrection of these banners that say
'This site best viewed in Chrome' ?

A monopoly on _anything_ is rarely a good thing.

~~~
solarkraft
That's already happening. Not with banners, but notes. I could imagine them
becoming more obtrusive in the future.

------
zzo38computer
A lot of web browser software just isn't very good. I have mentioned how to do
better way in my opinion. One principle is that the user can customize
everything and it assumes the user know what they are doing and wants it,
while the data from the remote server is assumed to be hostile (regardless of
whether it is HTTPS or not). There are other principles too, to use. (One
feature of Firefox I don't like is when you try to save a webpage it tries to
use the title of the document by default; the title does not usually make a
very good filename. The filename in the URL is often better.)

However, often HTML/HTTP(S) is just the wrong protocol for many things (I am
not so sure it is so good for this Hacker News either!); we have other
protocols as well as other file formats, such as plain text over HTTP, plain
text over gopher, telnet/SSH for interactive sessions, IRC for chat, NNTP,
SMTP, MIDI, and one reason I invented Remote Virtual Table Protocol for
exposing data sources.

~~~
kiwidrew
> However, often HTML/HTTP(S) is just the wrong protocol for many things

Indeed! First we lost all of the IP protocols except TCP and UDP, thanks to
aggressive firewalls. NAT managed to kill any hope of end-user hosts acting as
true servers, so we ended up with a client-server internet.

Another round of aggressive firewalling killed off pretty much everything
except for 53/udp, 80/tcp, and 443/tcp. Middleboxes playing with unencrypted
DNS and HTTP then broke 53/udp (good luck introducing new RR types or
extending the protocol now!) and 80/tcp. Now we're left with HTTPS on 443/tcp
as our only remaining protocol that actually works reliably for end users in
the real world internet.

[Not to mention the fact that iOS and Android 8+ both prevent applications
from holding long-lived server connections. Want real-time notifications? No
choice but to go through the vendor's push notification service.]

------
bobajeff
I could care less about concerns about monoculture in web browsers. The web is
now dominated by a open source browser that works across many platforms.
That's a dream come true.

I'm more concerned about where the internet as a whole is heading. All the
privacy violations and censorship that's going around makes me want to find an
alternative or maybe become a hermit.

~~~
saagarjha
> I could care less about concerns about monoculture in web browsers. The web
> is now dominated by a open source browser that works across many platforms.
> That's a dream come true.

This is an optimistic take on the situation. A more grim one would be that the
web is now dominated by a nominally open browser that caters to the whims of a
single corporation that would like nothing better to have complete control
over the web, using its leverage over the dominant browser to push de-facto
standards that will end up being adopted by others. The truth is likely
somewhere in between those two extremes, or a mix of both.

> I'm more concerned about where the internet as a whole is heading. All the
> privacy violations and censorship that's going around makes me want to find
> an alternative or maybe become a hermit.

And, unfortunately, said company doesn't have a particularly spotless record
on this front.

~~~
bobajeff
Unfortunately, Google is not the only party interested in pushing censorship
and accessing your private lives. Nearly every company big and small making
money online has their hands in it. And it's not just companies involved
either.

Changing the browser engine doesn't change the power these organizations have
either. They would still be doing these things if Gecko was the dominant
engine.

------
WalterGR
A follow-up to this recent submission:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18617189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18617189)

State of web browsers in 2018 (ferdychristant.com)

212 points by petethomas 2 days ago | 196 comments

------
O1111OOO
In the thriving mid-2000s, there was Trident (Microsoft), Gecko (Mozilla) and
Webkit (Apple forks KHTML). Presto (Opera) and KHTML proper brought up the
rear. Basically three major companies/organizations.

Today we have: Blink, Gecko, Webkit. Basically three major
companies/organizations. Goanna (Pale Moon: old FF codebase) brings up the
rear here.

Like before, one company takes a huge lead. It was Microsoft, now it's Google.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The only thing that's changed for me is that I feel much more protective of
the work Mozilla is doing with Firefox. I consider them vital whereas before,
they were an option.

Note to Mozilla: stop playing around with borderline business practices that
force users to question your ethics.

source, browser engines:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_engine)

------
ksec
So what exactly is wrong Safari in terms of Web Standards, what is missing
that pisses people off? I see lots of Safari bashing but I have yet to see a
list of features / functions / bugs to back it up.

~~~
Technetium_Hat
Apple seemingly refuses to implement modern web APIs, especially those
required for SPA's, in Mobile Safari. The popular theory is that this is to
avoid SPAs threatening their App Store.

~~~
ksec
So which "modern" Web API did Apple refuse to implement ?

------
icantrank
i wanted a graph, he wrote 2 articles which were too long to enjoy with no
graphs :(

