SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Google isn't the company that we should have handed the Web over to
Back in 2009, Google introduced SPDY, a proprietary replacement for HTTP that addressed what Google saw as certain performance issues with existing HTTP/1.1. Google wasn't exactly wrong in its assessments, but SPDY was something of a unilateral act, with Google responsible for the design and functionality. SPDY was adopted by other browsers and Web servers over the next few years, and Google's protocol became widespread.
[...] The same story is repeating with HTTP/3. In 2012, Google announced a new experimental protocol, QUIC, intended again to address performance issues with existing HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2. Google deployed QUIC, and Chrome would use QUIC when communicating with Google properties. Again, QUIC became the basis for IETF's HTTP development, and HTTP/3 uses a derivative of QUIC that's modified from and incompatible with Google's initial work.
It's not just HTTP that Google has repeatedly worked to replace. Google AMP ("Accelerated Mobile Pages") is a cut-down HTML combined with Google-supplied JavaScript designed to make mobile Web content load faster. This year, Google said that it would try to build AMP with Web standards and introduced a new governance model that gave the project much wider industry oversight.
A person claiming to be a former Microsoft Edge developer has written about a tactic Google supposedly used to harm the competing browser's performance:
A person claiming to be a former Edge developer has today described one such action. For no obvious reason, Google changed YouTube to add a hidden, empty HTML element that overlaid each video. This element disabled Edge's fastest, most efficient hardware accelerated video decoding. It hurt Edge's battery-life performance and took it below Chrome's. The change didn't improve Chrome's performance and didn't appear to serve any real purpose; it just hurt Edge, allowing Google to claim that Chrome's battery life was actually superior to Edge's. Microsoft asked Google if the company could remove the element, to no avail.
The latest version of Edge addresses the YouTube issue and reinstated Edge's performance. But when the company talks of having to do extra work to ensure EdgeHTML is compatible with the Web, this is the kind of thing that Microsoft has been forced to do.
See also: Ex Edge developer blames Google tricks in part for move to Chromium
Related: HTTP/2 on its Way In, SPDY on its Way Out
Google Touts QUIC Protocol
Google Attempting to Standardize Features of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Google AMP Can Go To Hell
The Next Version of HTTP Won't be Using TCP
HTTP/3 Explained: A Work in Progress
Microsoft Reportedly Building a Chromium-Based Web Browser to Replace Edge, and "Windows Lite" OS
Mozilla CEO Warns Microsoft's Switch to Chromium Will Give More Control of the Web to Google
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Zinho on Tuesday December 18 2018, @04:05PM
About half of the article and comments seem to be focusing on the unilateral introduction of new browser features, and painting that action as a bad thing. That seems short-sighted, given the history of the Web and how the standards we all use now came to be.
From the beginning of the Web the standards were a reflection of current usage, not a prescription for features no one had implemented. In fact the first IETF HTML standard [wikipedia.org] included the <plagiarism>NCSA Mosaic browser's custom tag for embedding in-line images, reflecting the IETF's philosophy of basing standards on successful prototypes.</plagiarism> Competing implementations of novel features, later agreed upon by consensus, was how the web was built. Lately everyone's been happy to rest on their laurels, and while this has been good for browser compatibility (it's been a LONG time since I've seen a "best viewed in Browser X" note on a website) it's been bad for innovation.
Now, I guess it's time for me to shake my cane, and yell at the kids on my lawn about how back in the day I had to test my code against three or more browsers before publishing to make sure it presented well, and I'm better for it! Actually, I think we're all better for it, since the features that were single-browser back then are everywhere now. It's about time that someone got a bee in their bonnet and started making waves again. It will suck for a while until everyone agrees that the new features are useful and they get adopted into the new revisions of the standards, and then we'll have more stories to tell our kids about the bad days before Sliced Bread was invented.
One last comment to deflect incoming accusations of being a Google shill: breaking the web for a specific competitor is a Wheaton's Law violation. Even if the intent was just to do something a bit fun, breaking the user interface on a lark is bad design. Google is famous for this. [soylentnews.org] (kudos to driverless for winning yesterday's "awesome phrase of the day" contest! Latte-sipping hipster cretins, indeed.) They are bad and should feel bad. And if anyone wants to accuse Google of Embrace-Extend-Extinguish, they need look no further than the "don't be evil" motto that was famously dropped from the Alphabet corporate charter in 2018 and dropped from the Google corporate charter this past May. Embrace the Internet community with the promise of ethical presentation of search results. Extend the trust granted into a near-global panopticon of the Internet's contents, inhabitants, and traffic. Extinguish all hope of personal privacy, and train an entire generation to willingly trade their rights for shiny targeted ads and apps-for-that. Any complaints from Microsoft, meanwhile, sound like a runner-up complaining that they didn't get to do it first, this time. Tough luck, Bill; you're not the biggest silverback in the jungle anymore.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin