Microsoft begs Web devs not to make WebKit the new IE6

[jakem1]

Yeah, the only difference is that Webkit is open while IE was and still is proprietary. It's a night and day difference. Not to mention that browsers who use Webkit (Safari, Chrome) are updated transparently to the user making the very latest version immediately adopted at 90% marketshare.

It's not even beginning to compare to IE6 and never will.

IE10 will continue to linger just like everything microsoft and IE long after IE 11 is out and this fragmentation is the worst thing that has caused the web the biggest damage in progressing forward.

Whether webkit is open source or not is irrelevant. If they're including and encouraging the use of proprietary extension then they're doing precisely what Microsoft tried to do - get developers to rely on non-standard code to improve market share.

[Boz]

That's ridiculous. Ignoring the fact that webkit has a tiny share of the desktop market and the mobile market isn't big enough yet to matter, what you're advocating is no different to the situation that existed when IE6 owned the market.

LOL, telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about and then comparing an open source HTML rendering engine that everyone can contribute to and improve with IE6 is hilarious. I think it's pretty clear who doesn't know what they are talking about here.

The problem with IE is that it's proprietary. That's why it stagnated. Company who owned it, Microsoft, got lazy and didn't do anything to improve it while not allowing everyone else to contribute nor even get access to it which is a HUGE difference.

And btw,

43.2% of browser marketshare belongs to Webkit, while 99% on mobile makes it a standard.

[HawkMan]

It doesn't matter if browsers use different rendering engines, or if some browsers are closed source, what matters is that the standards they use and follow are ACTUAL web standards. and not something they themselves made up, like Chrome did here, Chrome needs to stick to the actual standards.

Also it's been proven time and time again, that artificial web standards tests are absolutely useless outside of e-peen enlargement for the browser that specifically is coded to score high on the test, not to follow the standards.

[Max Norris]

All browsers with tab process isolation consume more memory than those that lack it. I'm happy to sacrifice a bit of memory usage for the knowledge that a tab crash won't completely torpedo every browser window I have open. And unlike Firefox, Chrome hasn't been plagued by memory leaks since it's inception.

I haven't seen memory leaks since Firefox version 4, never mind having Firefox actually crash.. the only time I've had something go wrong with Firefox is Flash occasionally tanking once every few weeks.. and that doesn't crash the browser. And I wouldn't mind "a bit" more memory usage (if they could get the addons and extendability up to Firefox's level), but when one browser can handle multiple tabs with a couple hundred megs of memory and the other is using well over a gigabyte showing the same tabs? That's a lot more than "a bit"...

[Boz]

Whether webkit is open source or not is irrelevant.

It's irrelevant? Having everyone access to the engine's base and being able to build upon it, improve it, independent from any one company is irrelevant to you?

Yeah, please. You clearly don't know what you are talking about nor you have an idea of how open source works.

It doesn't matter if browsers use different rendering engines, or if some browsers are closed source, what matters is that the standards they use and follow are ACTUAL web standards

It matters because Microsoft can follow W3C standards now and when it gets 80% of marketshare again they can do the same thing they did with IE6 and nobody can do anything about it. You don't see how that's a possibility?

With webkit that can't happen because it is now owned, nor developed exclusively by a single company. How can you people not get that.

[+Zlip792 MVC]

In some part IE is better than Firefox and Chrome like CSS2.1 standard support so I think IE should not die but rather webkit should drop their webkit specific prefixes treatment for mobile world from which Microsoft and Firefox both suffering.

If you read on mozilla dev google group and check Firefox is working desperately to work correctly on their Android version of browser because mobile world is currently Webkit ruled, that's what Microsoft hit because no doubt WP8 has potential to gain much shares. So they want actually seamless transition from iPhone or Android to WP8 for people.

[HawkMan]

LOL, telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about and then comparing an open source HTML rendering engine that everyone can contribute to and improve with IE6 is hilarious. I think it's pretty clear who doesn't know what they are talking about here.

The problem with IE is that it's proprietary. That's why it stagnated. Company who owned it, Microsoft, got lazy and didn't do anything to improve it while not allowing everyone else to contribute nor even get access to it which is a HUGE difference.

No, IE stagnated because there was no competition, there was nothing pushing web development forward.

Also 99% web .. sure. keep the dream alive.

And being a de facto standard doesn't mean they can make up their own standards when there is a standards body who's job that is, why is it like this ? so that new start ups know what standards to follow when they try to break up a stagnated standards browser like Chrome is starting to become. If chrome loses all competition, we'll have history all over, and without a clearly defined standards form an actual standards body, you're making it harder for the competition to actually compete.

EVERYONE, defacto standard or not, has to follow the same standards and not make their own.

besides that they are not a defacto standards, they need to be a LOT closer to 90% before that.

[Noir Angel]

I haven't seen memory leaks since Firefox version 4, never mind having Firefox actually crash.. the only time I've had something go wrong with Firefox is Flash occasionally tanking once every few weeks.. and that doesn't crash the browser. And I wouldn't mind "a bit" more memory usage (if they could get the addons and extendability up to Firefox's level), but when one browser can handle multiple tabs with a couple hundred megs of memory and the other is using well over a gigabyte showing the same tabs? That's a lot more than "a bit"...

I've found Chrome extensions for everything that I have needed. I don't need to turn my web browser into an operating system, I have Windows for that. I like a browser to browse and Chrome does that job just fine for me.

[HawkMan]

It's irrelevant? Having everyone access to the engine's base and being able to build upon it, improve it, independent from any one company is irrelevant to you?

Let me quickly ask 1000 random people on the street about that.

huh, would you know, they all said yes, it's irrelevant.

And no MS can't because they're not going to get 80% again, and if they do it's because they're the best browser, which means the competition has to step up their game. Again, they got a monopoly last time because there was NO competition.

[Noir Angel]

Most people on the street have no idea how technology works, of course they'll say it's irrelevant. That study would be no more valid than going into McDonalds and asking one of their employess how you should perform brain surgery. A single standard that everybody collaborated on and contributed to would be great for the web, especially ones that are largely free of commercial influence like Webkit and Gecko

[Max Norris]

I've found Chrome extensions for everything that I have needed. I don't need to turn my web browser into an operating system, I have Windows for that. I like a browser to browse and Chrome does that job just fine for me.

I don't "turn my browser into an operating system" either.. I'm just talking day to day use addons. There's some decent addons for Chromium sure, I'm not saying there isn't, but a lot of the more complex ones just doesn't give you anywhere near the same level of flexibility that Firefox can provide in both functionality and interface. A good example would be AdBlock Plus.. it's not even close. Can't bring up a list of elements, can't actually hide elements (you get a lot of blank spaces instead), rule editing is weak at best.. more often than not it's easier to actually build the rules in Firefox then copy then over. Granted, it's still 1000% better than IE's implementation.

[Elliott]

Eh, I just use SCSS and either Bourbon or Compass to do my prefixed and unprefixed properties automatically.

[HawkMan]

Most people on the street have no idea how technology works, of course they'll say it's irrelevant. That study would be no more valid than going into McDonalds and asking one of their employess how you should perform brain surgery. A single standard that everybody collaborated on and contributed to would be great for the web, especially ones that are largely free of commercial influence like Webkit and Gecko

But it IS irrelevant, even 99.9%+ of coders think it's irrelevant, they're not going to as much as look at the code, much less do anything with it. closed or open source is irrelevant, what's relevant is following a set standard set by a responsible third party, NOT by the browser developer

[jakem1]

43.2% of browser marketshare belongs to Webkit, while 99% on mobile makes it a standard.

No, that doesn't make it a standard, it just makes it a marginally popular engine.

Browser usage on Windows 8 surpassed Android in a couple of days so it's clear that mobile browsing is currently irrelevant. The majority of people are using non-webkit based browsers. Even if webkit's numbers exceed the 50% mark in the next couple of years a significant number of people will continue to use non-webkit based browsers for years to come.

It's irrelevant?

Yes, it's completely irrelevant. What matters is that users have choice and can be sure that websites they visit will work in whichever browser they use. Proprietary extensions are just as damaging whether they come from an open or a closed source browser. IE6 proved that and all you're advocating is a return to a situation where the web stagnates because of a lack of compatibility.

If you stopped hating Microsoft for a second you'd see how ridiculous your argument is. Oh and your complaints about IE stagnating because of it's closed nature are about a decade out of date. IE is currently one of the most innovative browsers on the market and is forcing other browser manufacturers to compete. Deny it if you want but without IE Google would still refuse to acknowledge that user privacy matters and we wouldn't have hardware accelerated browsers.

[Boz]

If you stopped hating Microsoft for a second you'd see how ridiculous your argument is.

If you stopped defending Microsoft for a second you'd see how ridiculous your argument is.

Not seeing, how ironic and hypocritical it is for a company that took the internet a decade back with it's crap browser and it's proprietary practices while abusing monopoly (that's why other browsers couldn't penetrate their dominance), trying to present themselves as champions of "standards" and warning how open source browser engine is somehow bad, while at the same time trying to lock down Windows as much as possible, is hilarious at best.

And yes, they are such huge supporters of what's good for everyone while they deliberately refuse to support WebGL (when everyone else has) instead of peddling their own proprietary DirectX.

Not to mention that saying that if it wasn't for Microsoft we wouldn't have hardware accelerated browsers is just plain nonsense. Webkit was actually the first browser engine who introduced hardware accelerated support when Apple released the very first iPhone.

They need to shut the hell up and let IE die because Microsoft has proven how good they are for the web and while IE10 might be solid now, knowing what Microsoft is like this won't last long and they will continue trying to abuse anything they can to push their own proprietary approach.

[HawkMan]

If you stopped defending Microsoft for a second you'd see how ridiculous your argument is.

Not seeing, how ironic and hypocritical it is for a company that took the internet a decade back with it's crap browser and it's proprietary practices while abusing monopoly, trying to present themselves as champions of "standards" and warning how open source browser engine is somehow bad, while at the same time trying to lock down Windows as much as possible, is hilarious at best.

And yes, they such huge supporters of what's good for everyone that they refuse to support WebGL instead of peddling their own proprietary DirectX.

Seriously, are you saying it's a bad thing if Chrome would implement the actual W3C standard instead of making their own non standardized function ?

SERIOUSLY. it's not about loving Microsoft, It's about your unreasonable hate for MS and your love affair with google and how they can do no wrong. If this is seriously what you think that Chrome and gogle can do what they want and just make up their own standards instead of using actual defined standards...

Also, WebGL is not a standard yet, and it's a horrible, buggy and insecure implementation. I thought you'd rather have flash anyway....

[Athernar]

If you stopped defending Microsoft for a second you'd see how ridiculous your argument is.

Not seeing, how ironic and hypocritical it is for a company that took the internet a decade back with it's crap browser and it's proprietary practices while abusing monopoly (that's why other browsers couldn't penetrate their dominance), trying to present themselves as champions of "standards" and warning how open source browser engine is somehow bad, while at the same time trying to lock down Windows as much as possible, is hilarious at best.

And yes, they are such huge supporters of what's good for everyone while they deliberately refuse to support WebGL (when everyone else has) instead of peddling their own proprietary DirectX.

Do you know what is really ironic and hypocritical? The fact you have the sheer gall to criticise Microsoft for potential future standards non-compliance, and then try and defend Chrome for doing the exact same thing IE6 did.

They need to shut the hell up and let IE die because Microsoft has proven how good they are for the web and while IE10 might be solid now, knowing what Microsoft is like this won't last long and they will continue trying to abuse anything they can to push their own proprietary approach.

Google need to shut the hell up and let Chrome die because Google has proven how good they are at spying on people. Chrome is proprietary non-standard spyware and should be removed by virus scanners.

Hurr hurr I can do this too.

[Boz]

Seriously, are you saying it's a bad thing if Chrome would implement the actual W3C standard instead of making their own non standardized function ?

Webkit is following W3C standards.. but they are able to add new features that push the boundaries and bring more stuff because W3C is too slow. Unlike Microsoft, Webkit stuff is actually open to everyone. It's not "Chrome" that does anything.. it's integrated in webkit and every browser using webkit as an engine uses it. That's why a site and everything you make in Chrome will look the same in Safari and that right there is the most important thing for developers. The fact that you can use all of these across the board.

And let's not pretend that IE doesn't have non-standard extensions. They have plenty which makes this whole argument completely ridiculous.

As far as WebGL.. WebGL works. I do prefer Flash but not because it's Flash or some bias but because it's still the most universal way to get rich interactive content out the door that works identical across all browser. With this, I am not tied to Flash at all, I would love to see WebGL and new features that Adobe is championing with Google, Apple and W3C to get some amazing things in webkit like proper wrapping around objects (like in prepress/InDesign), CSS3 gradients, CSS3 effects and blend modes, and many other things.

And btw, WebGL security issues are an excuse.. The cross-domain texture problem has been solved with latest versions of Safari, Firefox, Chrome by having it's own sandbox. The reason why Microsoft doesn't want to support it is because it's an open source alternative to their own proprietary garbage. That's why.

[farmeunit]

What a load of rubbish.

IE10 is a superb browser and Firefox, Chrome et al need to take a few lessons from it.

Standard compliance all the way, Opera and Webkit are the new destroyers of the internet. and i say that as a Chrome user.

Why are they asking people to code their sites for it, if it's so "compliant"? If it was compliant, it would work across all.

[Noir Angel]

I don't "turn my browser into an operating system" either.. I'm just talking day to day use addons. There's some decent addons for Chromium sure, I'm not saying there isn't, but a lot of the more complex ones just doesn't give you anywhere near the same level of flexibility that Firefox can provide in both functionality and interface. A good example would be AdBlock Plus.. it's not even close. Can't bring up a list of elements, can't actually hide elements (you get a lot of blank spaces instead), rule editing is weak at best.. more often than not it's easier to actually build the rules in Firefox then copy then over. Granted, it's still 1000% better than IE's implementation.

ABP seems to work fine for me in Chrome

[hjf288]

If you stopped defending Microsoft for a second you'd see how ridiculous your argument is.

Not seeing, how ironic and hypocritical it is for a company that took the internet a decade back with it's crap browser and it's proprietary practices while abusing monopoly (that's why other browsers couldn't penetrate their dominance), trying to present themselves as champions of "standards" and warning how open source browser engine is somehow bad, while at the same time trying to lock down Windows as much as possible, is hilarious at best.

And yes, they are such huge supporters of what's good for everyone while they deliberately refuse to support WebGL (when everyone else has) instead of peddling their own proprietary DirectX.

Not to mention that saying that if it wasn't for Microsoft we wouldn't have hardware accelerated browsers is just plain nonsense. Webkit was actually the first browser engine who introduced hardware accelerated support when Apple released the very first iPhone.

They need to shut the hell up and let IE die because Microsoft has proven how good they are for the web and while IE10 might be solid now, knowing what Microsoft is like this won't last long and they will continue trying to abuse anything they can to push their own proprietary approach.

Oh this is hilarious and with the graphs out of thin air with no reference, and made up % market shares...

Boz you have no credibility with the Apple boys, now you are doing the same with the Microsoft... You really should just stop arguing for arguing sake because you look silly doing so.

[LaP]

Web devs should make web sites that validate according the the w3c standard and then if the sites don't display properly on a browser the devs should not care and let the creator of the browser works on making his browser compatible with the standard.

Sadly the world is a not a perfect place ... i'm not really knowledgable about mobile web sites as i'm not working on those for my cie (other devs do). But i can tell you zoom:1 and height:1% are still sadly very popular i see them often while technically i should not.

I think i tell my project manager once a year that if ie7 doesn't display a web site properly we should just tell our clients to upgrade or simply get the content as is cause in the end getting the content is what is important the rest is just eye candy. The same should apply to mobile webkit if it is not standard compliant.

[Nooomak]

"Lazy coding"?

[Noir Angel]

No, that doesn't make it a standard, it just makes it a marginally popular engine.

Browser usage on Windows 8 surpassed Android in a couple of days so it's clear that mobile browsing is currently irrelevant. The majority of people are using non-webkit based browsers. Even if webkit's numbers exceed the 50% mark in the next couple of years a significant number of people will continue to use non-webkit based browsers for years to come.

An even greater majority of people are using non Trident based browsers. Around 62% of all users now use non Trident based browsers,(so Microsoft's argument that the web should be tailored to suit their browser is still silly). a higher percentage than those not using Webkit based browsers. Isn't it great when we skew stats to fit our agenda?

[Thingol]

You reap what you sow ha, Microsoft :)

I think they deserved it.