standards-positions VS construct-stylesheets

You can check why Mozilla and Apple have opted to not support this.

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/154

https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/28

Neither Mozilla or Webkit are satisfied that the proposal is safe by default, and contains footguns for the user that can be pretty destructive.

FWIW Mozilla updated their position on Web Serial API to "neutral" and clarified that they might be okay with enabling the API with an add-on.

https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#webserial

Allowing serial but not HID would be really strange. With HID you get standard identifiers that let you filter out devices that are too dangerous for the web. With serial you get nothing. Even if you know a device is dangerous, there's no way to protect users from it.

Hasn't FireFox been dragging their asses on @scope? https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/472

It took years to just convince them of the need for it. And I'm not sure anyone got convinced vs Chrome had already shipped it and Safari has it planned so they caved in.

Hard to believe FireFox used to be a leader of the modern web.

As mentioned by others, OK idea, but not a fan that this isn't standardized. After a quick search+peruse, these seem to indicate that it's not around the corner either. Happy (/hope) to be corrected.

https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/4180

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/990

Mozilla's position on these specs is nicely outlined publicly and transparently as part of their standards-positions project: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/100

I'm kinda glad it's not implemented in my browser, to be honest, because the whole thing seems like a security nightmare.

It's a shame it impacts some hobby usecases, but I don't think this outweighs the reasoning set out on the GitHub issue.

This should have big warnings on it. Some of these are not web standards; they are features implemented unilaterally by Google in Blink that have been explicitly rejected by both Mozilla and Apple on privacy and security grounds.

Take Web Bluetooth, for example:

Mozilla:

> This model is unsustainable and presents a significant risk to users and their devices.

— https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-bluetooth

Apple:

> Here are some examples of features we have decided to not yet implement due to fingerprinting, security, and other concerns, and where we do not yet see a path to resolving those concerns

— https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/

This is Microsoft’s Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish bullshit applied to the web platform by Google. Google keeps implementing these things despite all other major rendering engines rejecting them, convinces people that they are part of the web, resulting in sites like this, then people start asking why Firefox and Safari are “missing functionality”. These are not part of the web platform, they are Google APIs that have been explicitly rejected.

Is BLE a PWA requirement? I think they explained their position pretty well here, regardless of whether I agree:

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/95#iss...

I took a glance at Can I Use what the difference between the last public release of Firefox and Chrome is [1] and they don't really have that big of a difference in the eyes of normal use-cases? Some of these aren't implemented purely because of privacy reasons, the proposals aren't finished yet or complexity [2].

Why would Firefox need to change to Chromium engine? The only websites I notice that don't work with Firefox is because of user-agent targetting or just putting 5-second time-outs in Youtube code on non-chrome webbrowsers [3].

Can you give some examples of websites not working on Firefox?

[1] https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+120%2Cfirefox+121&compar...

[2] https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/

[3] https://www.neowin.net/news/youtube-seemingly-intentionally-...

Mozilla are dragging their heels on @scope:

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/472

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/implement-css-scope-rul...

Someone who clearly didn't get it was wasting three years time "well actually"ing everything. The latest news is "it's worth prototyping". Meanwhile Chrome has released it(steam rolled?) and Safari has it in tech preview.

I question if FireFox has the resources to keep up with the pace of the modern web.

> With adoptedStyleSheets they're objecting to making backwards incompatible changes

Which would not be bacwards incompatible if they hadn't shipped something that wasn't agreed on in the first place.

Again, slowly: they literally shipped that to production despite loud and explicit objecitons from both Firefox and Safari they shipped it to production. When asked to hide it back behind the flag, "but backwards incompatible change, the framework we're developing is already depending on it"

And since you're quoting rniwa, here's the relevant quote https://github.com/WICG/construct-stylesheets/issues/45#issu...:

--- start quote ---

I feel like I’ve put so much time & energy into making this feature something sane & useful, and all you did was basically to dismiss many of my feedbacks and go with whatever you like and just ship it. And now you’re saying you can’t make changes because you shipped it?

I’m sorry but that’s just not how standards work.

--- end quote ---

> With WebMIDI they're saying they want to do an announcement before making the change.

Indeed. Once again: because they shipped an API that neither Safari nor Mozilla supported. Now that this issue has surfaced (no thanks to Chrome), they can't just roll it back or fix it because people already rely ono this behaviour, which the implicitly acknowledge.

It's not true, to w3c's surprising credit.

What Google does, is publish a "draft" which is as far from a standard as their authors are from the Moon. This gives Chrome the leeway to call it an "emerging standard" and just ship it. It doesn't care if there are objections, or that other browser vendors will not implement it. It's now a "standard" in Google's dictionary.

For something to become a W3C standard even in the present world, you need a consensus and at least two independent implementations. None of that exists for stuff Google pushes out (hardware APIs, web transport, constructible stylesheets [1], the list goes on...).

The correct name for those is Chrome-only non-standards.

[1] These one isn't even a draft. It is.... "a collection of interesting ideas" in a working group https://wicg.github.io/construct-stylesheets/ Shipped by default in Chrome, of course

I literally provided just some of the examples. Those are easily verifiable.

Web Transport is shipped by default. What was the input from other browser?

Here's the timeline for HID: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/459#is...

Constructible Stylesheets: the spec contained a trivially reproducible race condition, the API was badly specified. Google shipped against any objections and refused to bring it back under the flag. Full discussion here: https://github.com/WICG/construct-stylesheets/issues/45. Shipped in Chrome https://github.com/WICG/construct-stylesheets/issues/45#issu... (may be hidden on mobile) despite multiple unresolved issues. Two years later Chrome did add a better API that people originally requested, other issues potentially remain.

> If there are examples of 'Apple ignoring standards' actually meaning Chrome-only features please tell me one.

Easy.

The most obvious/glaring one is WebHID. Enjoy the timeline: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/459

It's not just HID, of course. All/most of the hardware APIs are considered harmful by both Safari and Mozilla. Chrome is shipping them enabled by default, and there's no end to clueless developers maoning about this and calling Safari (mostly) and Firefox (from time to time) too slow in "moving the web forward". Needless to say that all those non-standards are pushed forward by Chrome.

The less obvious one is Constructable Stylesheets.

The spec had an obvious flaw that could lead to easily reproducible deadlocks. And that is on top with other issues with design, API naming etc. A team within Google (lit-html) wanted this feature, so Chrome shipped it against clear objections from both Safari and Firefox. And then refused to move the feature back under a flag because "0.8% of page views in Chrome" were suddenly using this feature. And proceded to gaslight other browsers' developers https://github.com/WICG/construct-stylesheets/issues/45. See e.g. a response to that https://github.com/WICG/construct-stylesheets/issues/45#issu... Of course there's now a "looking ahead" that wants to do exactly what Safari and Mozilla wanted to do in the first place: https://web.dev/constructable-stylesheets/#looking-ahead

In general, Chrome pushes 40 to over 100 new Web APIs with each release (that is, every two months). How many of them are actual standards that had actual input from other browser developers? In how many Chrome actually listened and implemented suggestions? https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence

> The negatives are often theoretical

They are not theoretical. Too bad webapicontroversy.com has been shut down (it looked like this [1]), but you can scroll down to "defer" and "considered harmful" in Mozilla's positions here: [2]

There are more, of course, but they are not visible unless you're willing to follow thousands of issues across hundreds of GitHub repositories. One that springs to mind is, of course Constructible Stylesheets. Mozilla and Safari: the spec describes an algorithm that leads to deadlock in trivial code, we wont implement it until this is fixed. [3] Chrome: ship it, because lit-html (developed by Google) wants it and is already using it. And then procedes to gaslight people and misrepresent their positions (cant' find the relevant link, but at this point I can't find the will to dive into the cesspool).

[1] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/32768/108985355-3f...

[2] https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/

[3] https://github.com/WICG/construct-stylesheets/issues/45#issu...