If you are a regular reader of this site then you will have seen recently that I have an eye on Browser Compat Data. I believe that understanding the shape of the platform that developers can build for helps everyone. It helps developers because they know what is reasonably available and can rely on in their sites and apps. It helps framework authors for the same reasons, and it helps Browser vendors because they can use this intelligence to work out where they can put some of their efforts.
As I've been looking at what is new on the web (the set of features available across browsers), I thought it would be interesting to look at what is not yet available across the web. Why? Many reasons:
- There is a lot of rhetoric about browsers pushing too hard and causing issues and there is a similar amount of frustration that there are browsers that are holding back the web - is it accurate? and if so where?
- If you are looking at projects such as Interop 2022 and trying to work out where the vendors should improve interoperability of their browsers, there is a clear list (ignoring priority)
I created "Not yet Stable" to help you look at this question. It will let you get information on the features that are in at least one of your selected browsers but not available across all of them.
Caveat: This site relies on data that is curated by people and as such might have errors in the source (you can check and edit here). The algorithm that parses the data might also contain errors.
When you look at the above data it might look like that either Chrome is pushing ahead too much - both Firefox and Safari are equally behind in that regard, or another way to look at it is that Chrome is pushing to far. But it's interesting to see that Chrome is trying to keep up with Safari, but hasn't been able to do as much when looking at Firefox.
At a high-level it's fun to poke at this, but it's more meaningful to look at the areas where. As mentioned in The Lumpy Web - the big gaps in the platform you can see and know to avoid (or work with), it's the smaller areas where you expect things to just work that cause you a lot of frustration and wasted time.
To that end, you might want to inspect a little closer. For example, you can look at just Chrome against Firefox or Safari compared to Firefox and see the parts of the platform where you will.
One thing that I've noted is that there is a lot of inconsistency in anything related to Media - Chrome has Web Codecs API but Firefox and Safari don't. PIP seems to be in Safari and Chrome but not Firefox, MediaStreams and MediaTracks seem to have different API surfaces.
TIL taintEnabled and RemotePlayback
What is important is that the data is available and we can start to tell interesting and hopefully accurate stories with that data.
I lead the Chrome Developer Relations team at Google.
We want people to have the best experience possible on the web without having to install a native app or produce content in a walled garden.
Our team tries to make it easier for developers to build on the web by supporting every Chrome release, creating great content to support developers on web.dev, contributing to MDN, helping to improve browser compatibility, and some of the best developer tools like Lighthouse, Workbox, Squoosh to name just a few.
I love to learn about what you are building, and how I can help with Chrome or Web development in general, so if you want to chat with me directly, please feel free to book a consultation.
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