Chromopoly
The Google Chrome team is pushing the web forward. I am worried about competition, privacy and the future of web standards. No revealing news here, just my personal view based on vague pre-assumptions.
| Browser | Market share |
|---|---|
| Google Chrome | ~65% |
| Safari | ~15% |
| Microsoft Edge | ~5% |
| Firefox | ~3% |
| Opera | ~2% |
| Other (Brave, Arc, Dia, Zen, Vivaldi, Samsung …) | ~10% |
The current browser landscape shows how Chrome chrominates. This simplified view doesn't account for differences between mobile/desktop usage or operating systems.
Love at first sight
In 2009 authoring CSS was still playing mockawhole with Internet Explorer. Then Google Chrome arrived. It was lightweight and powerful. Everything Google produced was fresh back then. Chrome tookoff and helped to push web standards and to crack up the Internet Explorer dominance. It also pressured Apple to improve Safari (WebKit). I'm genuinely grateful for all of that.
Under the influence of advocacy
Over the years, I've become increasingly wary of new initiatives and web developer resources from the Googleverse. I don't click on search results from web.dev any more.
Working in support with web hosting clients, I see developers chasing "best practices" according to Core Web Vitals (CWV) to improve their Lighthouse scores (SEO). This often leads to premature optimizations like above-the-fold CSS inlining while ignoring fundamental issues. It's classic over-engineering, but I also see Google's influence in it.
Google Chrome team invents, but the rest of the web is just too slow. Slide from a recent talk by Bramus YouTube. Other CSS heroes like Rachel Andrew and Philip Walton also joined the Google developer relations team. I hope they have a good influence.
Google web platform innovations
As a UI/UX person I am excited about new browser features like scroll animations and page transitions, or typographic improvments like text-wrap: pretty. But I can wait a bit until they will become standarized and mainstream available, specifically when there is a good fallback (progressive enhancement).
Remember Houdini, the 'future' of CSS - back in 2016? Google's web team has delivered fails and genuine improvements, but some initiatives raise questions:
- WEI - Web Environment Integrity API
- AMP - Accelerated Mobile Pages
- Permission element proposal - Google blog, HN
In closing
I keep using Firefox with uBlock Origin (hello Manifest V3). But it should not be forgotten that Firefox major revenue source (75%?) is for the default search engine deal with Google.
I'd like to see an open, decentralized internet. I believe a diverse browser ecosystem means better security, more innovation and stronger privacy protections. I've read about growing influence by tech giants on web standards through WHATWG and W3C, but I lack insights. Is it time for antitrust action? I don't know. Do I want to see want to see a new browser by an AI company that does not have a good track record in privacy? No, I don't.
Up until, please remember to don't be evil. Thanks.