Should we really care what the rendering engines want? What about what users and app authors want? If Google was adding things that nobody cared about, it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that these things are useful.
Should we really care what the rendering engines want? What about what users and app authors want? If Google was adding things that nobody cared about, it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that these things are useful.
> Should we really care what the rendering engines want?
Yes. Let’s use Web MIDI as an example. This was proposed by Google, and implemented by Google. It was initially rejected by both Mozilla and Apple on privacy and security grounds. Mozilla eventually gave in and implemented it. Then it came to light that porn sites had been using Web MIDI to fingerprint and track users.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679063
I think Apple made the right call there. Just blindly saying yes to functionality is not good for the web.
I sort of agree with Safari's call - a lot of Chrome's functionality is declined by Safari on reasons that it enables fingerprinting. For that reason I think the site is misleading in its rating of privacy.
But I don't think Google's to blame for making a different choice about it. It's picking a different privacy / functionality trade-off, but it's doing it with open standards that others are free to implement if they want.
It's putting some pressure on Apple because users often care more about functionality than about privacy, but not so much that they're worried about it, I think. They seem to be doing well!