Made For Google Chrome - IE6 all over again

[MarcP]

Interesting article. This is going back to the old days of IE6...

http://www.neowin.net/news/google-st...e-ie6-playbook

There was a time in the Internet's history where a single browser dominated the standards that websites were developed by and that browser was IE6. That was then and to this day, Microsoft is working to undo what it did so many years ago by helping to kill off the IE6 browser. While we wish the days of browser segregation were behind us, it would seem that Google is content with using a tactic that comes directly from the IE6 playbook.

Earlier today Google announced a partnership with Tate Modern to launch a new web exhibit. While nothing about this seems out of the norm, if you happen to visit the website using something other than Chrome, you are prompted with the message below

http://www.exquisiteforest.com/ doesn't even work in IE9 for me. And firefox leaves a warning at the top of the page.

However, if you fake the browser agent, the site works just fine in either IE9 or Firefox.

[hugh]

Google says the site uses HTML 5 and Javascript so is there anything proprietary being used?

[repatch]

What a misleading article.

IE6 was all about monopoly. MS put features into IE6 which were very incompatible with established internet standards. Lots of theories why.

This situation is the complete opposite. This website uses features that are very new, but STANDARD. Chrome's claim to fame is it's support of the most advanced HTML5 features. The limitation is due to other browsers not yet supporting those features.

The newest FF is pretty good, I'm not surprised it works fine on that site. IE9 is SUPPOSED to be very good, but I guess there are a few things it doesn't support that this website uses. No surprise there.

MS is trying. IE9 is a VAST improvement over earlier versions. It'll get there.

Not that I care, I use platforms that aren't supported by IE9.

TTYL

[MarcP]

But as I said, if you fake the browser's user agent, I have no problems accessing this site with either Firefox or IE9.

[repatch]

You say it "works just fine". How do you know it does? Have you checked every feature of the site?

Obviously the web designer was concerned that Firefox and IE wouldn't have the support for all the features they were using.

Now, it's entirely possible that either the web designer was just lazy and didn't want to test if any browser other then Chrome worked (quite common actually), or it's possible that the version of FF and IE used during development showed issues, resulting in the restriction, that the current version of FF and IE have fixed.

Again, this is neither here nor there. The article implies that Google, with Chrome is trying the same thing MS did with IE6: push proprietary non-standard extensions in to the web. This is blatently false.

[MarcP]

Fine. You win.

[753951]

Originally Posted by repatch

This website uses features that are very new, but STANDARD.

For someone making such a bold statement you should know that HTML5, as of now, is not STANDARD (yet). It's not even a standard. According to W3C HTML Working Group it is in draft state, with goal to become recommendation in 2014.

According to some with experience in that area, two fully working and inter-operable implementations will happen in next decade. Google Chrome is merely at forefront of current draft implementation. Just sayin' ...

[repatch]

You're right, it's not a finalized standard.

That doesn't change the validity of my statement: Chrome is not doing what IE6 did. The article is wrong.

[753951]

Originally Posted by repatch

The article is wrong.

Without doubt. Either desire for sensationalism or lack of understanding on author's part.

[Arthur Dent]

If a site only works in Chrome, Google is guilty of the exact same thing Microsoft was doing with IE6. Takes a pretty heavy Google fanboyism to deny it.

Of all fanboys, I find Google's most amusing. In the cases of Apple, Samsung, BMW, etc., fanboys base their passion on certain features and actual products of the respective companies. Google's fanboys are swept away by publicity stunts with zero practical value, like intelligent glasses, self driving cars and optical internet in one city (I can't even realize what the deal with the latter is, it's just an overpriced internet and TV bundle). Except for the search engine, their freewares are nothing noteworthy. The few Google branded phones and tablets do not even register on the sales stats. They collect absolutely all possible information about everybody, and for some reason it makes their fans ecstatic.
It must be that "Do no evil" moto.

[MarcP]

I was challenged to check every features of the site with the latest Firefox and fake the user agent. I did and it all worked, but it is obvious that it doesn't matter. I've been trolled and it shall stay that way.

[Paolo]

It takes less effort to make a site multi-browser compatible, and gives the user a better experience.

Sometimes its so simple to make it work, but webmasters and developers do not at all want to put the small bit of code because they will have to edit page by page manualy and they created the page with some gui based program that does not support the feauture of adding the code. its just lazyness and we pay the price.

[viper359]

Sometimes its so simple to make it work, but webmasters and developers do not at all want to put the small bit of code because they will have to edit page by page manualy and they created the page with some gui based program that does not support the feauture of adding the code. its just lazyness and we pay the price.

This is so very true. Just look at large scale websites. Futureshop comes to mind. Conflicting information all over their support pages. Pages that don't load properly, pages that try to pull information from old resources that now don't work anymore etc. Seems the larger a website gets, the worse it gets.

[audacity]

Originally Posted by Arthur Dent

If a site only works in Chrome, Google is guilty of the exact same thing Microsoft was doing with IE6. Takes a pretty heavy Google fanboyism to deny it.

If a web developer chooses to use new features offered by browsers (and not revert to the "lowest common denominator" way of thinking) and not make a fallback for other current browsers (e.g. IE9) then I would say that is the responsibility of the web developer. Personally, I think its just fine if a developer chooses to not support old versions of IE if they figure their time is better spent elsewhere.

So, lets suppose a developer chooses to use a CSS feature, and that feature was first implemented in Chrome and the site won't work in other browsers until they support the given feature. All because Google got the feature out-the-door first. Is this somehow Google's fault?

I think you can blame the developer or you can blame the other browser makers, but I don't see how Chrome is at fault if they implement a feature first (e.g. WebGL). Is Google supposed to implement a feature and then wait for all the other browser makers to implement it first before they release their new version? If so, who gets to release first, or are they all supposed to release on the same day?

Personally I'm a fan of many Google products, and I probably use at least one of them every hour of every day.

Originally Posted by Arthur Dent

In the cases of Apple, Samsung, BMW, etc., fanboys base their passion on certain features and actual products of the respective companies. Google's fanboys are swept away by publicity stunts with zero practical value, like intelligent glasses, self driving cars and optical internet in one city (I can't even realize what the deal with the latter is, it's just an overpriced internet and TV bundle).

That is painting people with a pretty broad brush.

So, am I wrong to like Chrome, Gmail, Search, Google Earth and Google Maps? Google Navigation (the Android feature) is top notch and I replaced my Garmin with it last year. And I would love it if I could have a symmetric 1Gbps fibre internet connection to my home for less than what most ISPs charge for much slower speeds, and unlike those other ISPs, Google doesn't have a bandwidth usage cap. If that was available in my city, I'd order it.

I mean, your last comment there really showcases how little you know about Google's Internet service. You can pay:

$0/month (+$300 construction fee to run the line) and then you get free internet for 7 years (5Mbps down, 1Mbps up, no data caps).

$70/month and you get a symmetric 1Gbps up/down connection with no data cap. This is less than the $84/month I'm currently paying for 100mbps down and 5mbps up and a 500GB monthly data limit.

$120/month and you get the 1Gbps connection and a bunch of TV services.

If you can get a better deal anywhere in North America, please tell me where.

[Arthur Dent]

Originally Posted by audacity

So, lets suppose a developer chooses to use a CSS feature, and that feature was first implemented in Chrome and the site won't work in other browsers until they support the given feature. All because Google got the feature out-the-door first. Is this somehow Google's fault?

Yet somehow when in this quote you replace "Chrome" with "IE6" it magically becomes Microsoft's "fault".

So, am I wrong to like Chrome, Gmail, Search, Google Earth and Google Maps?

You like them, no doubt about it. If you weren't, you wouldn't be charmed by the inherent goodness of Google and defending their obvious attempt to push their own browser the same way Microsoft did back then.

And I would love it if I could have a symmetric 1Gbps fibre internet connection to my home for less than what most ISPs charge for much slower speeds, and unlike those other ISPs, Google doesn't have a bandwidth usage cap. If that was available in my city, I'd order it.

I'm sure you would. But you can't. I'm sure you'd like to order those intelligent glasses. But you can't. I'm sure you would like to have a self-driving car. But it will never happen. For anybody, anytime soon. (Except for the glasses, I'm sure you can buy similar glasses in some Chinese marketplace right now, next to the iPhone 5 ) All of these Google publicity stunts are fiction. Their purpose is only to promote the "coolness" of the company so that people embrace their personal information-gathering freeware with less second thoughts.

If you can get a better deal anywhere in North America, please tell me where.

Right now probably not. But you can't get it from Google either. Only available to a few neighborhoods in Kansas city. But we've been hearing about Google coming to bring limitless fast internet to the masses for so many years. Finally, it's here (somewhere over there, actually). Although it wasn't (and isn't) meant to be a sustainable business by Google, they still waited until the data prices came down, so their publicity stunt is of smaller budget. Besides, the only exceptional and "revolutionary" for North America thing about it are the declared up/download prices for the $70 package.
A few more catches here that make the acrobatics easier: First, rarely a households needs more than 50mbps symmetrical, and that's what will allow Google to offer the thing in the first place without exceptional data buying effort. Second, $70 for a very fast Internet service is something that is impressive in North AMerica, in other parts of the world people are living in bliss with 25 mbps up/dpown for $7 and 100 mbps up/down for $20. Third, fast enough internet for almost every need for $70 is not a novelty even for North America.