My 2024 end-of-year resolution — it’s like a New Year’s resolution but better — is to return to the front-end! I’ve been neck-deep in server-side JavaScript this year. I’ve had a blast but my true speciality and passion lies in the browser.
Front-end web standards have never moved faster and I need to catch up.
CSS Goodness
CSS is where the party is at. Building websites is my day job so I haven’t fallen too far behind but I’d prefer to be more knowledgeable. Adam Argyle’s list and talk is a treasure trove. Thomas has a list you can actually use today. I’d say my current knowledge lies somewhere in the middle.
I’ve recently sprinkled some View Transitions onto a client website. Using progressive enhancement, naturally. Scroll Driven Animation are high on my list to learn. It’s the type of thing clients insist on, for better or worse.
Front-end is fun again but there is a dark side to this story. I’m finding the choice of web browser a depressing matter.
Browser Wars
The uncomfortable truth is that web browser choice is not in a healthy place. There exists a bizarre juxtaposition. On one side are developers moving the web forward. On the other side, the dark side, are their employers; the companies behind web browsers. Browser vendors today are doing an exceptional job rivalling Microsoft of the ’90s.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Google is dominating web standards direction. They have a lot of power with Chrome’s superior market share. It can’t be denied, Chrome is one heck of a web browser.
Whilst many within Google just want to make the web better it’s impossible to ignore the insidious actions of Google at large. Google’s U-turn on 3rd party cookies and doublespeak around it has been utterly disgusting and indefensible. Google is never far from another brazen attempt at a web coup d’état. AMP failed despite fiddling metrics. No doubt Google will try again. They took email and they’ll take the web.
Firefox is sadly a zombie browser at this point. Mozilla are incapable and seemingly disinterested in stopping its downfall. They’re too busy hanging on to the AI bandwagon, becoming advertisers, and adding privacy violating backdoors.
This is heartbreaking for me to see. I remember when Firefox first launched. It was the catalyst that ended Internet Explorer’s dominance. It was my primary browser for so long. Firefox developers really do care. I recently bemoaned a bug on Mastodon:
All I offered was a shrug report before going about my day. Despite me providing no follow-up, others identified and reported the issue. A fix was quickly implemented which landed in Firefox 131. There are still many within Mozilla who deserve stronger leadership.
And what of Safari? Its existence does help block Google’s reign of terror. Safari and WebKit continue to improve despite a history of showstoppers. For all the goodwill the WebKit team generates, higher-ups at Apple continue to handcuff the web and web apps. Apple’s gaslighting and fanboy culture is infuriating. Apple wants to close the web within their walled garden. Safari’s market share was earned through anti-competitive behaviour. You can’t claim merit of being the best browser by being the only browser.
The web is in desperate need of another Firefox 1.0. The web does not need another inept Chromium derivative like Arc browser with the special kind of security and privacy blunders only VC funding can cook up. Arc failed by their own admission.
Sure, other browsers like Brave, Vivaldi, LibreWolf, and DuckDuckGo exist. To varying degrees they attempt to undo, fix, and protect against Apple, Google, and Mozilla’s shenanigans. But their existence relies entirely on one of the big three.
True viable competition from the likes of Ladybird and Servo is years off. Are such projects ever likely to catch up? I’m skeptical.
I’ve switched to Chromium (ungoogled) for day-to-day website development. It’s a practical and pragmatic choice to make testing more efficient.
Feels like I’ve given in to the dark side.
Now what?
That’s the big question, isn’t it? As a website developer, how can I improve this situation? I don’t have the answer, sorry! You wouldn’t want my answers anyway. I started web dev via Flash and once touted Silverlight as “the future”. Remember Silverlight? Exactly.
What I do know is that the web has proved to be remarkably resilient. Turns out people only have so much patience for proprietary pap. If I build upon open standards and champion good things I’m at least doing something positive.
Where was I? Oh right, so I plan to blog more front-end stuff going forward. I’ll try not to make it all JavaScript either. Although I am excited about exploring reactivity in custom elements.