Once Browser Tech Partners, Google And Apple Are Divorcing. Is The Web In Trouble?

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[Commentary] It’s a little more than a year since Google launched Blink, a custom engine used by Chrome to turn HTML and CSS code into what you see on your screen.

Before that, Chrome was powered by a tweaked version of WebKit, the Apple-led open source engine used by Safari.

But developers and browser makers alike say cross-browser development is actually less painful than it’s ever been, thanks to efforts by browser providers to keep the tools as functionally compatible and compliant with published standards as possible.

“I think that browser compatibility is actually way ahead of what it used to be," says Rey Bango. "If you look at the most modern versions of browsers, things are coming off really nicely." Far from creating silos or havoc, this move by Google shows how "competition" in the technology sector can be a much more nuanced concept than usually thought.

On the web, businesses, distribution networks, and services operate across so many layers of abstraction that practically no game is zero sum. A competitive marketplace keeps individual browser makers from rolling out major features that aren’t supported by their rivals, since developers won’t make much use of a feature that only works in one browser.


Once Browser Tech Partners, Google And Apple Are Divorcing. Is The Web In Trouble?