Is Chrome the New IE? (2023)

Yes.

If it works on Chrome, no one cares or even tests for other things.

If there is a JS feature in Chrome they want to use, so it’s impossible to use other browsers (instead of looking wrong) people do it.

Performs fine in Chrome? Ship it.

Yes, Chrome is the new IE in that it’s the only browsers companies care about, just like IE was for a very long time.

Everything has to be Chrome compatible to succeed. That’s the benchmark, not what the spec says.

> If it works on Chrome, no one cares or even tests for other things.

We've been through an extensive standardization pass for this to not happen. Anything not matching the specification whether in Chrome or any other browser should be considered a bug.

This is not at all the same as IE, where it just went its own way.

> should be considered a bug

Should be, but isn't. At least not in a practical sense.

Unless you want to have customers on iOS.

Yes, Chrome is necessary for some sites that don't work on Firefox.

Yes it should be, but it isn't, that's the problem

The unstated major premise of this assertion is that the standard is a spec that every browser must comply with exactly. It's not; there's not a single browser that has ever implemented 100% of whatever was the latest standard at the time, and major browsers typically also include many of their own additions that go beyond the standard.

This latter bit isn't in conflict with the standard; it's an essential part of the standardization process. The typical route for something making it into the standard is for a browser to release their own browser-specific extension and use that as a basis for advocating that it be added to the standard. XMLHttpRequest, for example, started as an IE-only feature and didn't make it into all the other major browsers for several years. It got a published W3C spec a little bit after that, which meant that browsers needed another couple years to also get synced up on their behavior.

In this respect, Chrome has definitely now taken IE's old position: new Web standards have a tendency to start as Chrome-specific extensions, and then the other browsers have to implement their own versions and get them ratified into the W3C specs in an effort to try and keep up. Which in turn suggests that a compatibility-minded Web developer might want to choose a similar strategy from what was done in the past: test on the most popular browser last.

> The unstated major premise of this assertion is that the standard is a spec that every browser must comply with exactly. It's not; there's not a single browser that has ever implemented 100% of whatever was the latest standard at the time, and major browsers typically also include many of their own additions that go beyond the standard.

Sure, but there is a big difference between implenting 99% of the standard and only implementing like 10%

I manage websites for a couple of non-profits. A very high percentage of traffic is from Safari (mostly on iOS) -- 40% on one site. Only testing in Chrome seems like a bad idea.

As I wrote in a similar thread a year ago: Whenever I point out that some bug which happens in Firefox my colleagues usually responds with some variant of "we tested in Chrome, and that is the standard", or "can you ask the customer to use Chrome instead". Even if Firefox or some other browser may be using a proper standards implementation and the Chrome one being the one with some quirk.

I run into enough sites that seem to think nothing but desktops exist and tell you to just not use a phone.

It makes a difference in how easy it is to get it working in multiple browsers.

But if developers don't check, then either one could break the site for all the users.

No, I dont think this is the case. While a lot of devs use Chrome while developing, we're all well aware that 50% or more of US users are using an iPhone. And that's Safari no matter what. So many do a ton of testing there as well. Firefox often gets the shaft.

I know as a matter of fact that many teams'/companys' approach is "We'll develop and run our CI tests on Chrome only. If it breaks on Firefox or Safari, we'll fix it, but that's as much as what we care about." And I'll be honest, for many organizations, it's a good business and financial move.

I do opposite. I develop and test over Firefox. If it works on Firefox, would work on anything (plus I always doing transpilation to baseline)

ChromeOS and Project Fungu.

It really depends on where in the world we're talking about. iOS is big in some places (like US) but insignificant in others.

Some websites basically force you to install the app for that.

This isn't a chrome fault. It's lazy dev orgs. You aren't going to fix lazy dev orgs.

It also depends on the kind of site. The more the operator thinks you should be using a desktop, the worse it is.

as Apple intended.

iOS is important in all rich countries, and if you want to address wealthy people in developing markets. It is very important for these reasons.

What about half-assed specifications that Chrome throws over the wall, ships them, and advertises them as standard everywhere, including web.dev? Even though their status is "not on any standards track"?

In Europe Safari has decent 21%. Thus I would not neglect Apples web browser but calling it very important is going a step to far in my opinion.

Yeah one non-profit is a place that people physically so I imagine a lot of people look at it on their cell phone. We have over half of our visitors on mobile.

One in five is not enough to be very important? I disagree.

people with money tend to use Safari