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Opinion: Chrome is Turning Into the New Internet Explorer 6 (theverge.com)
Tom Warren, writing for The Verge: Chrome now has the type of dominance that Internet Explorer once did, and we're starting to see Google's own apps diverge from supporting web standards much in the same way Microsoft did a decade and a half ago. Whether you blame Google or the often slow moving World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the results have been particularly evident throughout 2017. Google has been at the center of a lot of "works best with Chrome" messages we're starting to see appear on the web. Google Meet, Allo, YouTube TV, Google Earth, and YouTube Studio Beta all block Windows 10's default browser, Microsoft Edge, from accessing them and they all point users to download Chrome instead. Some also block Firefox with messages to download Chrome. Hangouts, Inbox, and AdWords 3 were all in the same boat when they first debuted.
It's led to one developer at Microsoft to describe Google's behavior as a strategic pattern. "When the largest web company in the world blocks out competitors, it smells less like an accident and more like strategy," said a Microsoft developer in a now-deleted tweet. Google also controls the most popular site in the world, and it regularly uses it to push Chrome. If you visit Google.com in a non-Chrome browser you're prompted up to three times if you'd like to download Chrome. Google has also even extended that prompt to take over the entire page at times to really push Chrome in certain regions. Microsoft has been using similar tactics to convince Windows 10 users to stick with Edge. The troubling part for anyone who's invested in an open web is that Google is starting to ignore a principle it championed by making its own services Chrome-only -- even if it's only initially.
It's led to one developer at Microsoft to describe Google's behavior as a strategic pattern. "When the largest web company in the world blocks out competitors, it smells less like an accident and more like strategy," said a Microsoft developer in a now-deleted tweet. Google also controls the most popular site in the world, and it regularly uses it to push Chrome. If you visit Google.com in a non-Chrome browser you're prompted up to three times if you'd like to download Chrome. Google has also even extended that prompt to take over the entire page at times to really push Chrome in certain regions. Microsoft has been using similar tactics to convince Windows 10 users to stick with Edge. The troubling part for anyone who's invested in an open web is that Google is starting to ignore a principle it championed by making its own services Chrome-only -- even if it's only initially.
I don't see a problem when it comes to beta sites, but for full production the site has to be W3C compliant, just use the HTML and CSS validators to ensure that the site follows all standards. But when it comes to JavaScript then it's a headache of its own, primarily on Microsoft browsers where those browsers have a tendency to do things differently.
But a site that depends on JavaScript is in general a pretty crappy site.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
IMHO, it's particularly alarming when the Debian Stable version of Chromium is showing as "no longer supported" by Google Docs. I ran into this warning several times, and it's one of several reasons I had to break my addiction to Google Docs. I can understand Google's desire to add functionality to their Google Docs platform, but to break Docs' functionality in fairly recent versions of their own open-source browser baffles me. There are reasons I don't want to use Chrome, and prefer to use Chromium. When Google slaps limitations on my ability to use W3C standardized browsers and force me to use their non-standard browser, I get the feeling they're only going to do worse in the future - al la Microsoft.
And so, last year I decided to ditch Google Docs and go back to LibreOffice. The most painful aspect of this is the loss of world-wide, easy access to my documents. Leaving the cloud is a hassle, but it's better than vendor lock-in.
trying to do some crappy workaround with arrows on each edge of the map where you click an arrow and the entire page refreshes with the map moved that direction is a stupid way to avoid Javascript.
Some anti-JavaScript hardliners here and on SoylentNews have stated that they actually prefer what you call "a stupid way to avoid Javascript." Or they would prefer to download, audit, compile, and install a native map viewer application distributed in source code form.
I've been creating web sites since the 1990s. I still believe that a site should "work" with JavaScript disabled. I like the idea of using AJAX type technologies to just refresh a small portion of the page (eg. scroll or zoom the map), but if JavaScript is disabled clicking on the buttons should cause the whole page to load with the desired adjustment applied.