What will a Chromium-only Web look like?
Hi, I’m Mark Nottingham. I usually write here about the Web, protocol design, HTTP, and Internet governance. Find out more.
Most of the complexity and nuance of the Web is stuffed into browser engines. Even though they’re a huge burden to develop and maintain, the world is lucky enough to have three major ones, and they’re all Open Source.
Many argue that browser engine diversity is the backbone of the open Web – assuring not only interoperability and user choice but also a bulwark protecting the Web from centralization.
So my ears perked up when I recently heard from a well-placed contact that “many in the Chromium community are arguing for a Chromium-only Web.” While the Chrome team (and friends) have long railed against what they perceive as other browsers’ plodding implementation of cutting-edge extensions to the Web, it’s a pretty big leap to advocate for a Web with only one browser engine.
On the face of it, there is some sense to it – after all, most W3C and WHATWG specifications have been written algorithmically (rather than declaratively) for a while now. Why not just converge on a single actual codebase? That way, interop on things like HTML parsing is perfect, but people can still choose the browser with the features (e.g., privacy protections) that they want.
