Rick Byers
@rbyers.net
Web Platform engineer at Google on the Chrome team, helping the open web to thrive.
Opinions are my own, not my employer's.
Opinions are my own, not my employer's.
One of my jobs on Chrome is quantifying overall product quality signals. This quarter we're taking a hit on crashes entirely due to iOS, which looks to be primarily due to WebKit and iOS bugs. When I try to check on the status of the current major one (bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi...), I get this:
October 3, 2025 at 11:44 PM
One of my jobs on Chrome is quantifying overall product quality signals. This quarter we're taking a hit on crashes entirely due to iOS, which looks to be primarily due to WebKit and iOS bugs. When I try to check on the status of the current major one (bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi...), I get this:
Reposted by Rick Byers
The Web is the platform you are looking for. Pass it on.
Apple pulls ICEBlock app from the App Store
Apple pulls ICEBlock app from the App Store
ICEBlock reportedly has 1.1 million users.
buff.ly
October 3, 2025 at 2:26 AM
The Web is the platform you are looking for. Pass it on.
Reposted by Rick Byers
Computing some preliminary analysis over the #StateOfHTML pain points data and some …interesting patterns are emerging 🙃
September 22, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Computing some preliminary analysis over the #StateOfHTML pain points data and some …interesting patterns are emerging 🙃
Reposted by Rick Byers
A few years ago I started writing about evolving web standards and @rbyers.net suggested I should cover WPT: the web platform tests project that most people working with the web have a vague idea about that has evolved into an engine of interoperability. since then, I've been tracking people down
How a Shared Test Suite Fixed the Web’s Biggest Problems
The story of Web Platform Tests (WPT), the collaborative test suite that transformed the web from an inconsistent platform into a stable one.
thenewstack.io
September 30, 2025 at 10:32 PM
A few years ago I started writing about evolving web standards and @rbyers.net suggested I should cover WPT: the web platform tests project that most people working with the web have a vague idea about that has evolved into an engine of interoperability. since then, I've been tracking people down
Reposted by Rick Byers
Why I 🧡 the web.
This #WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet is amazing. Smooth animation. Peaceful vibes (and i didn't even play, I wondered around).
messenger.abeto.co
#JavaScript #chillvibe #game
This #WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet is amazing. Smooth animation. Peaceful vibes (and i didn't even play, I wondered around).
messenger.abeto.co
#JavaScript #chillvibe #game
September 27, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Why I 🧡 the web.
This #WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet is amazing. Smooth animation. Peaceful vibes (and i didn't even play, I wondered around).
messenger.abeto.co
#JavaScript #chillvibe #game
This #WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet is amazing. Smooth animation. Peaceful vibes (and i didn't even play, I wondered around).
messenger.abeto.co
#JavaScript #chillvibe #game
The question isn't "is Tylenol use in pregnancy associated with autism?", its "does treating fever with Tylenol during pregnancy increase or decrease the risk of autism?". europepmc.org/article/MED/...
Europe PMCEurope PMC
Europe PMC is an archive of life sciences journal literature.
europepmc.org
September 27, 2025 at 1:07 PM
The question isn't "is Tylenol use in pregnancy associated with autism?", its "does treating fever with Tylenol during pregnancy increase or decrease the risk of autism?". europepmc.org/article/MED/...
When I was on an H1-B working in Redmond 20 years ago my immigration lawyers asked me last minute to cancel a trip for legal reasons. My response: "attending family events is more important to me than living in your country".
September 20, 2025 at 11:10 PM
When I was on an H1-B working in Redmond 20 years ago my immigration lawyers asked me last minute to cancel a trip for legal reasons. My response: "attending family events is more important to me than living in your country".
Reposted by Rick Byers
Yup. We're ready at Google Waterloo, we've got a beautiful new building open! Common north!
September 20, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Yup. We're ready at Google Waterloo, we've got a beautiful new building open! Common north!
Reposted by Rick Byers
You still have time, The State of HTML 2025 survey is live.
Browser vendors use this data to prioritize features, fix incompatibilities. Standards bodies use it too.
It’s not just a survey, it’s influence.
Take 10 minutes.
Share what you care about. 👇
stateofhtml.com/en-US
Browser vendors use this data to prioritize features, fix incompatibilities. Standards bodies use it too.
It’s not just a survey, it’s influence.
Take 10 minutes.
Share what you care about. 👇
stateofhtml.com/en-US
August 30, 2025 at 9:00 AM
You still have time, The State of HTML 2025 survey is live.
Browser vendors use this data to prioritize features, fix incompatibilities. Standards bodies use it too.
It’s not just a survey, it’s influence.
Take 10 minutes.
Share what you care about. 👇
stateofhtml.com/en-US
Browser vendors use this data to prioritize features, fix incompatibilities. Standards bodies use it too.
It’s not just a survey, it’s influence.
Take 10 minutes.
Share what you care about. 👇
stateofhtml.com/en-US
Who is free in the bay area this afternoon and wants to be inspired by computing's past while chatting about the future of the web?
Join me at the Computer History Museum around 3-5pm today! [1/7]
Join me at the Computer History Museum around 3-5pm today! [1/7]
August 16, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Who is free in the bay area this afternoon and wants to be inspired by computing's past while chatting about the future of the web?
Join me at the Computer History Museum around 3-5pm today! [1/7]
Join me at the Computer History Museum around 3-5pm today! [1/7]
How did I go 46 years without experiencing the joy of enterprise-grade network gear at home? Worth every penny...
July 19, 2025 at 9:11 PM
How did I go 46 years without experiencing the joy of enterprise-grade network gear at home? Worth every penny...
I think this will be wonderful for the future of the open web: blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-....
As Matthew Prince says, imagine if we could create a system whereby creators and content aggregators could efficiently negotiate a fair price for use of their content.
As Matthew Prince says, imagine if we could create a system whereby creators and content aggregators could efficiently negotiate a fair price for use of their content.
Introducing pay per crawl: Enabling content owners to charge AI crawlers for access
Pay per crawl is a new feature to allow content creators to charge AI crawlers for access to their content.
blog.cloudflare.com
July 10, 2025 at 11:26 PM
I think this will be wonderful for the future of the open web: blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-....
As Matthew Prince says, imagine if we could create a system whereby creators and content aggregators could efficiently negotiate a fair price for use of their content.
As Matthew Prince says, imagine if we could create a system whereby creators and content aggregators could efficiently negotiate a fair price for use of their content.
In tech we are so good at blaming the user for our design flaws!
Me: "All 4 of my hotel keys stopped working."
Hotel: "Did you keep them near phones? That can demagnetize them, happens all the time."
Me: "No it can't! These are NFC cards, not magstripe cards." 😂
Me: "All 4 of my hotel keys stopped working."
Hotel: "Did you keep them near phones? That can demagnetize them, happens all the time."
Me: "No it can't! These are NFC cards, not magstripe cards." 😂
May 20, 2025 at 3:19 PM
In tech we are so good at blaming the user for our design flaws!
Me: "All 4 of my hotel keys stopped working."
Hotel: "Did you keep them near phones? That can demagnetize them, happens all the time."
Me: "No it can't! These are NFC cards, not magstripe cards." 😂
Me: "All 4 of my hotel keys stopped working."
Hotel: "Did you keep them near phones? That can demagnetize them, happens all the time."
Me: "No it can't! These are NFC cards, not magstripe cards." 😂
Reposted by Rick Byers
🎙️ New Episode of Igalia Chats
Unshipping: How (and when) to break web features
@bkardell.com and @meyerweb.com chat with Google's @rbyers.net about willingness to change and even unship features
www.igalia.com/chats/unship...
Unshipping: How (and when) to break web features
@bkardell.com and @meyerweb.com chat with Google's @rbyers.net about willingness to change and even unship features
www.igalia.com/chats/unship...
May 19, 2025 at 1:49 PM
🎙️ New Episode of Igalia Chats
Unshipping: How (and when) to break web features
@bkardell.com and @meyerweb.com chat with Google's @rbyers.net about willingness to change and even unship features
www.igalia.com/chats/unship...
Unshipping: How (and when) to break web features
@bkardell.com and @meyerweb.com chat with Google's @rbyers.net about willingness to change and even unship features
www.igalia.com/chats/unship...
DBSC is exciting! I hope it will lead to both meaningful better security and less hassle getting logged out all the time from websites. The convention of mobile apps staying logged in but websites logging out by default makes the web more frustrating!
Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC) is a new web capability designed to protect user sessions from cookie theft and session hijacking. This feature is now available for testing as an Origin Trial in Chrome 135.
Test DBSC on your website. Learn more:
Test DBSC on your website. Learn more:
Origin trial: Device Bound Session Credentials in Chrome | Blog | Chrome for Developers
Learn about the Device Bound Session Credentials Origin Trial in Chrome and how it can help protect user sessions from cookie theft.
developer.chrome.com
May 4, 2025 at 8:39 PM
DBSC is exciting! I hope it will lead to both meaningful better security and less hassle getting logged out all the time from websites. The convention of mobile apps staying logged in but websites logging out by default makes the web more frustrating!
I'm particularly excited about the emerging support for zero-knowledge proof age attestations. We must move past sharing sensitive PII online just for the purposes of verifying adulthood!
It’s now easier to prove age and identity with Google Wallet
blog.google/products/goo...
blog.google/products/goo...
It’s now easier to prove age and identity with Google Wallet
Learn more about new Google Wallet updates, including new ways to use your digital ID for age and identity verification.
blog.google
May 4, 2025 at 8:38 PM
I'm particularly excited about the emerging support for zero-knowledge proof age attestations. We must move past sharing sensitive PII online just for the purposes of verifying adulthood!
Reposted by Rick Byers
Origin trial: Cross-device Digital Credentials API now in Chrome desktop
developer.chrome.com/blog/digital...
developer.chrome.com/blog/digital...
Origin trial: Cross-device Digital Credentials API now in Chrome desktop | Blog | Chrome for Developers
Use the cross-device capabilities of the Digital Credentials API to present digital credentials across devices.
developer.chrome.com
May 1, 2025 at 6:29 AM
Origin trial: Cross-device Digital Credentials API now in Chrome desktop
developer.chrome.com/blog/digital...
developer.chrome.com/blog/digital...
Great article! The collaboration in Interop and WPT is really critical for a decent developer experience of the web!
I take a deep dive into Interop 2025; why the project is there, how it picks what browser features to focus on each year, how well it's doing and what the big areas for this year are - a mix of cleaning up existing features and making sure new features arrive already interoperable
Interop Unites Browser Makers To Smooth Web Inconsistencies
For the past four years, major browser vendors have collaborated to improve web interoperability by coordinating enhancements to inconsistent browser implementations.
thenewstack.io
May 2, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Great article! The collaboration in Interop and WPT is really critical for a decent developer experience of the web!
I'm excited about this program! Chromium isn't necessarily easy, but I know there are great engineers out there who would love to get paid for improving it!
🚨 Attention Chromium developers! 🚨
The SOCBB Bug Bounty Program is offering up to $10,000 for fixing bugs in Chromium-based browsers like Chrome & Edge! Contribute to repos like chromium, v8, and more.
Get paid via GitHub Sponsors! Start fixing: github.com/Supporters-O...
#Chromium #OpenSource
The SOCBB Bug Bounty Program is offering up to $10,000 for fixing bugs in Chromium-based browsers like Chrome & Edge! Contribute to repos like chromium, v8, and more.
Get paid via GitHub Sponsors! Start fixing: github.com/Supporters-O...
#Chromium #OpenSource
April 4, 2025 at 2:52 AM
I'm excited about this program! Chromium isn't necessarily easy, but I know there are great engineers out there who would love to get paid for improving it!
Fascinating study on the lack of effect of news content on Google search usage and ad revenue in Europe. storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog...
storage.googleapis.com
March 22, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Fascinating study on the lack of effect of news content on Google search usage and ad revenue in Europe. storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog...
Ben Thompson: "Platforms are the most valuable entities that there are because they don't just make money for themselves, they unleash and create the conditions for innovation." sharptech.fm/member/episo...
Sharp Tech
Sharp Tech - How technology works, and the ways it is impacting the world
sharptech.fm
March 15, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Ben Thompson: "Platforms are the most valuable entities that there are because they don't just make money for themselves, they unleash and create the conditions for innovation." sharptech.fm/member/episo...
If we're going to solve the content trustworthiness problem (and IMHO we MUST in the age of AI), then I'm confident it'll be primarily through ideas like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTaA...
Trust: Foundation of Human Knowledge yet online Platforms won't allow | David Karger | TEDxMIT Salon
YouTube video by TEDx Talks
www.youtube.com
March 13, 2025 at 7:44 PM
If we're going to solve the content trustworthiness problem (and IMHO we MUST in the age of AI), then I'm confident it'll be primarily through ideas like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTaA...
The Radiacode gamma spectrometer is a fun toy! My daughter discovered that this Mosasaur jaw we have is radioactive! It contains Bismuth-214, likely from uranium ore decay. Radiation is about 10x the background level, a bit more than the Am-241 smoke detectors in my house.
March 9, 2025 at 5:11 PM
The Radiacode gamma spectrometer is a fun toy! My daughter discovered that this Mosasaur jaw we have is radioactive! It contains Bismuth-214, likely from uranium ore decay. Radiation is about 10x the background level, a bit more than the Am-241 smoke detectors in my house.
Great stuff for web devs in Interop 2025! View transitions, navigation API, core web vitals, anchor positioning, etc!
We started the year with a low score (27%) so have a lot of work to do as a browser engine community to get broad interoperability on these important features!
wpt.fyi/interop-2025
We started the year with a low score (27%) so have a lot of work to do as a browser engine community to get broad interoperability on these important features!
wpt.fyi/interop-2025
March 4, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Great stuff for web devs in Interop 2025! View transitions, navigation API, core web vitals, anchor positioning, etc!
We started the year with a low score (27%) so have a lot of work to do as a browser engine community to get broad interoperability on these important features!
wpt.fyi/interop-2025
We started the year with a low score (27%) so have a lot of work to do as a browser engine community to get broad interoperability on these important features!
wpt.fyi/interop-2025