Chrome is turning into the new Internet Explorer 6
Which is precisely why proper international open web standards should be adhered to (https://www.w3.org/standards/). We don't want to end up with one big player dominating the market again and forcing everyone to use their technology on their terms, because that is the only way to access crucial websites. We can blame Microsoft or Google as the producers of the browser but it is ultimately the choice that an organisation makes (and its developers) to favour proprietary non-standard functionality from one browser. The browser producers dangle the carrot of "extra functionality" in front of the developers' noses, but we need to appreciate the longer term penalties for this such as:
– Interoperability between sites and systems suffers
– A vendor lock-in is created as you become dependent on a single browser
– Competition suffers as users organisations cannot easily switch products
– Innovation suffers because of the second and third point
– Costs start to rise as additional work is required for interoperability and lack of competition
It's in all of our interests (apart from the browser producers) to advance the existing international open standards so that they keep pace with newer requirements. It is up to developers and business owners to see the bigger picture and the importance of adhering to open standards. One last thought to envision a world where one proprietary standard exists…. think how easy or difficult it is today to break away from using the .docx document "standard" which is driven by one company.
