This is a nice conspiracy theory but doesn't match facts like Safari implementing the WebGPU standard at a faster pace than Firefox. Safari might not be great in some areas, but their WASM/WebGPU/WebAudio support is in pretty good shape.
Push Notifications, Web Bluetooth, Web NFC, User Idle Detection, the list goes on and on. Not even counting the hundreds of #wontfix bugs in their css engine. Its not a conspiracy theory if you recognize their incentives and consistent anti-consumer behavior for fucking decades.
That is not Web, that is ChromeOS Platform, incredible how people complain about Google's taking over the Web, while pushing Electron crap and their Chrome APIs.
These are things that literally everyone but Google thinks are terrible ideas.
Why don't you flip the conspiracy around and ask yourself why Google, the world's largest advertising agency and data hoover, wants browsers, a category dominated by Google, to have unmediated access to ever more user, system, and local network data?
That's nonsense. There's plenty of people that want those APIs that don't work at Google. And it does not give Google "unmediated access" - you have to explicitly opt-in to allow the browser to use them when a website requests access to these APIs. But of course, don't let the facts get in the way of your fanboyism for Apple.
And when it's normalised for firmware updates to happen via WebHID and WebUSB? Saying no will seem as fringe as browsing the web with NoScript. It's already the main way to upgrade keyboard firmware for a lot of mechanical keyboards, and it only works on Chrome. Thrilling developments for Google.
>> But of course, don't let the facts get in the way of your fanboyism for Apple.
Mate, I didn't even mention Apple. You're the one with the fixation here. Mozilla/Firefox is also deeply opposed to these anti-features.
>Mozilla/Firefox is also deeply opposed to these anti-features.
Mozilla is irrelevant, and they don't have a hardware platform where they forbid all other browser engines from it like Apple does.
If Apple weren't total assholes and didn't forbid Chrome from actually being Chrome on iOS, then I wouldn't care, I'd simply tell users to install Chrome. But Apple forces all browsers on iOS to use Safari, which they have intentionally crippled and refuse to let other browsers use their own engine.
If you don't think that's abusive business practices and deserves the DOJ lawsuit, then you're just another Apple shill.
>> Mozilla is irrelevant, and they don't have a hardware platform where they forbid all other browser engines from it like Apple does.
>> If Apple weren't total assholes
>> Apple forces all browsers on iOS to use Safari
>> you're just another Apple shill.
I've still not even mentioned Apple once.
You seem extremely fixated on Apple.
I'm not aware of any major corporation, group, standards body, or OSS project that would agree with Google's attempts to extend the browser so deeply beyond the web. The general consensus is that it is deeply reckless.
Google failed to get stuff like WebHID into the standard - because everyone thinks it's a terrible idea - so they've just rolled it out on their own anyway, using their browser monopoly to force facts on the ground. Facts favourable to Google, unsurprisingly.
When Microsoft did this sort of thing, we used to call them out on it. I have no idea why you seem so adamant to defend this. I can only suspect that you've let yourself become completely partisan in some grand Google-Apple war that you've imagined, which is why you keep bringing up Apple out of nowhere?
You are missing the initial point here, the accusation is that apple doesn't want the web as a viable platform to develop fully fledged cross platform applications that circumvent its own moat. You just repeat the maximalist position that the web shouldn't "extend the browser so deeply beyond the web". Many people disagree with that, its the best shot we have for true cross platform applications that would force Apple to open their platform, we say the reason apple doesn't want that is for purely profit driven reasons.
Also doesn't this argument apply to WebAssembly and other standards (like WebGPU) as well? Why should I be able to render a video game in the browser but have no way to manage input devices (like multiple controllers) to make it a suitable platform for fully-fledged video games in the future? Like I understand why Apple (OR Microsoft for that matter) doesn't want Stadia-like services to suddenly run on all their devices without any cut in monetization, so naturally they sabotage such efforts in Safari...
Like here is my own reason to support that effort: I use Linux, and there are a ton of proprietary applications that if there were developed on the web platform would become accessible to me.
I understand the privacy concerns with some of those APIs, but the argument isn't that the user shouldn't have agency over those features, do you see how that's a separate conversation?
> Many people disagree with that, its the best shot we have for true cross platform applications that would force Apple to open their platform, we say the reason apple doesn't want that is for purely profit driven reasons.
And equally, Google wants their platform to replace OSes for purely profit-driven reasons of their own. I'm not saying this as some terrible indictment. They're all corporations, I don't expect anything else from them.
> Also doesn't this argument apply to WebAssembly and other standards (like WebGPU) as well?
This is a fairly consistent strain of criticism on WASM posts here on HN. The death of software as we know it; all of computing as a service, forever.
> Like here is my own reason to support that effort: I use Linux, and there are a ton of proprietary applications that if there were developed on the web platform would become accessible to me.
What makes you think future thin-client 'PC's will even be able to run anything other than a browser shell? The current requirements for Windows/iPhone/Android will just be replaced by a requirement to run an approved, TPM-clad Chromebook, cryptographically certified to be running no software other than Chrome. The ultimate in Secure Boot. But of course this will provide no actual security to end users, in a world where websites can write to your keyboard firmware. Security for corporate IP, maybe.
I genuinely think you're letting your dislike of Apple - on which I hear you, Apple's no angel - cloud your judgment here. The future Google's building is pretty dark.
But it feels like a slippery slope argument to me, like how do you go so quickly from standardized web APIs to your ChromeOS/TCPA dystopia? I think that's quite the leap to make, especially considering we already have those locked tight ecosystems right now with iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS to varying levels of degree anyway. If proprietary applications go that route they would remain unaccessible to me, it wouldn't really change anything. But right now I can use things like figma and countless other apps because it runs on the web, it would otherwise never have been possible.
> in a world where websites can write to your keyboard firmware
again I would never relinquish control over the decision if it "can", I've been using Linux for 20+ years I already go to significant lengths to remain in control over my computing. But the fact that I can develop a cross-platform app that talks to some USB device directly via some standard web API, has benefits that outweigh the costs, that's just pragmatism.
Also if you asked me I would personally rather see Apple, Google, Microsoft and every other orphan crushing machine/publicly traded company shut down and all it's CEOs and shareholders hanging from street lamps, but personal politics aside, I'm only speaking of within the dystopia we already have anyway.
I don't think your stated interest in "remain[ing] in control over [your] computing" is at all compatible with the specific moves in tech that you're advocating for.
There's an obvious long-term trend for software to migrate from on-disk to cloud-based: from everything SaaS, through gaming, to Office suites. One common thread with all this software is that you have absolutely no control over it, which is - of course - the aim. No piracy, no unauthorised mods. Walled gardens forever in every direction.
Equally, there's a simultaneous long-term trend for 'attestation', ID checks, 'digital ID' documents, etc. Already, many bank apps refuse to run on Android devices that aren't Google-blessed and kissed. This trend is only accelerating.
In a world where paying taxes online - or accessing a bank account, or running an office suite - requires a Trusted Device™, what good is OSS? What good is software freedom? Running a Linux computer unable to interact with basic aspects of the modern world will quickly become as quaint as trying to do your day job on an Amiga.
I never mentioned Google. You seem really fixated on Google for some weird reason.
>The general consensus is that it is deeply reckless.
Bullshit, you made that up in your own head. Show some actual statistics instead of making shit up.
>Google failed to get stuff like WebHID into the standard - because everyone thinks it's a terrible idea
So you think you speak for "everyone"? Because you're also making that up.
>When Microsoft did this sort of thing, we used to call them out on it. I
Oh, like when they came out with XMLHTTPRequest and everyone told them to fuck off? That time? Oh, no, they actually didn't tell them to fuck off with their proprietary API, they also all implemented it in their browsers, and now it runs most of all the web.
> I have no idea why you seem so adamant to defend this.
I already spelled this out for you. Apple forbids any other browser on iOS except their own Safari. If they didn't abusively force Safari on all browsers on iOS, I would not have a problem, I would just tell users to install Chrome. But I can't, because Apple is abusive and here you are acting clueless again about what is actually going on.
