Why isn’t there a meta-browser?
I’m really happy with and excited about the speed that web technologies are becoming standardized, but I’m often annoyed when I find out that some of the major browser vendors don’t support (and may not have plans in the future of supporting) some or many of these standards. In many ways today’s browser ecosystem is hurting innovation.
Which brings me to my question, which has been on my mind for a long time now. Why isn’t there a meta-browser? It seems to me it would make sense for a lot of different reasons. The only groups who have potential to lose something are the browser vendors themselves, but along with potential loss of market share they lose all the complaints that fill up forums / bug trackers, while also gaining an even more vibrant web ecosystem that they are no longer forced to feel solely responsible for.
Design the meta browser with the sole purpose of encapsulating the browsing experience of a user into a single application, while allowing seamless interchange between browser applications behind the scenes depending on which browser a given site is “optimized” for. Design a standard that would be safe / secure around the idea that (a) users have preferences, and (b) developers have preferences, (c) the web is constantly evolving and no one group should feel responsible [nor should be the authority] for keeping up with it all. How do we build a perfect harmony around these 3 things? Don’t get me wrong, noone is asking users to download all the browsers on the off chance they may come across a site that prefers a particular browser. They should at the very least be notified they’re getting a sub-optimal browsing experience by choosing not to use another browser. Today the solution is pretty much “support all the major browsers for fear that you might lose out on a critical segment of the market you’re after”. You’re pretty much doomed to failure if you don’t.
It seems to me, at a very base level, (a) no browser vendor should be forced to implement standards if they’re not ready / don’t agree with for whatever (political?) reason, and (b) no web developer should be forced to figure out all the minutiae of what does or doesn’t work in a given browser, and have a plan for how to fall back for browsers that don’t support feature X,Y,Z just because “that’s the way it’s done”.
Granted all browsers should strive to implement standards, but it’s such drudge work these days if you want to implement something that’s even slightly on the edge of where the web technologies are these days.
I think it would also open up the eco-system, allowing small-time browsers to enter or sustain themselves in the market for niche products / standards, and help to take things even further to the edge than they are today.
It would also help users. If they’re running IE, but your site is “optimized” for Chrome, why go to the trouble of telling a user “You know what? We’re not optimized for IE, so if you wouldn’t mind, please open a new application and navigate to this website in that other browser to get the “optimized” experience. And by the way, every time you ever want to come back? Guess what, you’re going to be asked to open that other browser. It’s only a nuisance to a user and likely a lost cause, which is probably why no one really does it anymore. Who wants to put users through this: “I can’t wait for X in IE because I need IE for all these other things and it’s so annoying when I have to go do this in Y browser just for this one website”.
Does anyone think it’s fair / balanced to say “in order to get into the browser vendor game you need to be as big as Firefox / Google / Microsoft”? What if a small open-source group comes up with a great [name your favorite standard] browser, but ultimately they don’t follow through on the project because it gains zero traction. It’s impossible in today’s ecosystem for smaller groups to build a browser for fear they’ll never be able to convince even a small fraction of users to switch because in today’s world unless you have at least 10% of the entire world’s browser market share you’re a lost cause.
Of course I anticipate there would be some issues that would need to be worked out in terms of negotiating between user’s preferences and developer’s preferences. For example, no user should be forced to download a particular browser, but if a particular website is optimized for that experience and the user happens to have that other browser [they just don’t regularly use it] why can’t a user have both? If they want why not let them download the other browser and have it automatically open as the default application when they open www.somewebsiteabc.com. If a user normally uses Browser X, but they like the experience they can have in Browser Y for website Z, why force them to open the other browser manually? Maybe ultimately they decide it’s just not worth it. And besides that’s not the only hurdle. Given the social nature of the web today you don’t just need to convince John that he should use Chrome when he visits your site. You need to convince John and the majority of his friends / family and everyone he may ever encounter in the future as well.
This next point I can speak to personally, and probably many of you can also. Being a one, or sometimes 2-person development team you only have so many brains and hours in a day. If you’re trying to do something that you have a passion for and want others to experience that as well, it seems so unfair and unbalanced that in order to get your ideas out there and to have any hope of gaining traction with your project, you have to understand all the little nuances of different browser vendors. Because of this you end up having to make concession after concession when you realize that to maintain something as sophisticated as you want to develop you pretty much have to dumb down the whole experience because you spend 1/2 of your time tracking down the little details that either are or are not working right in Browser X through Z.
It seems to be such an obvious step in the evolution of web browsers given all the people it would benefit. All things on the web suddenly evolve more fluidly. You don’t necessarily have to wait until all browser vendors decide to implement a standard. You don’t have to wait for launch until your website is fully supported across all major browsers. Small niche browsers will finally have a place in the ecosystem, and a realistic path to adoption.
Browser vendors shouldn’t feel the need to be 100% caught up with all technologies / standards in order to be “legit”. All a browser vendor needs is a small group to build a specific implementation of a standard, and a small group of people who develop websites for that implementation. Then if a user happens to visit the site, the meta-app will either seamlessly transition to the other browser, or prompt the user to notify them they would get a more optimal experience by downloading the other application.
Some might say that’s a dangerous situation where users might be tricked into downloading bad browsers. I would argue it’s no different than what already exists where people go to these adware / shareware / whatever / app-store sites where they get the prompt “Please download this free application for X Y Z”. And even if there are problems early on it’s better in my mind to have an educated world where people understand the implications of downloading software and the precautions they should be taking if they haven’t already learned about this. These days browsers have the option for virus software integration. I can’t imagine why this wouldn’t be possible in a meta-browser too.
I don’t want to go on only to belabor the points. I think there are plenty of compelling reasons why in today’s fast-paced evolution of the internet and the world wide web, having a meta-browser to help distribute the responsibility for the web’s evolution makes alot of sense and helps pretty much everyone involved. Even the major browser vendors. Even if the major browser vendors might lose a little market share early on, I think they have a lot more to gain long-term with the far more diverse ecosystem that would come with it. In fact I would say it’s arguable whether market share would be at risk at all given the fact that in this new world people would regularly be using multiple browsers.
