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Posts by Rick Byers

I'm excited about FedCM ambient UI. Balancing tough tradeoffs is one of the hardest things we do in Chrome and the only way to do it well is to experiment heavily and collect user feedback.

1 week ago 8 2 0 0

Exactly. I'm seeing a lot of frustration in Chromium code reviews of AI authored code and I think the core difference is the removal of the "I'm helping a human grow" component.

2 weeks ago 1 0 0 0

Feels like the transition from IC to senior manager. So much more impact, so much less fun. Until you retire and can finally have fun coding 7 days a week again πŸ˜‚.

3 weeks ago 1 0 1 0
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Apple blocks developer from updating Mac app because its similar to a defunct feature Launchpad was killed by Apple. But, they're blocking a developer from updating their replacement.

Another day, another step down the path of our devices prioritizing their manufacturer's interests over the interests of the device owners. mashable.com/article/appl...

3 weeks ago 3 0 0 0
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Get features faster with Chrome's two-week release cycle Β |Β  Blog Β |Β  Chrome for Developers From September 2026 Chrome releases will be every two weeks.

Chrome is announcing that they are moving into a two-week release cycle! Exciting bc the web needs to move quickly- resolving bug fixes, feature improvements, etc. It goes along with devops principles of shipping smaller, more frequent releases for stability

developer.chrome.com/blog/chrome-...

1 month ago 47 7 3 3

Shouldn't be, we were already doing weekly security pushes. Half of those updates will now just get more than just security fixes.

1 month ago 2 0 0 1

Personally I believe this will help us to increase quality and stability. Today there's a lot of merging changes to release branches because they can't afford to wait, which creates some instability. With 2-week releases I expect more can just "ride the train".

1 month ago 3 0 0 0
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Native vs Progressive Web Apps: Which One Should You Build? | Lovable Compare progressive web apps and native development to find the right approach for your business and budget.

How will agentic coding tools impact app platform choices? Lovable says: "web apps cost 40-60% less than native development and reach the market 50-70% faster." lovable.dev/guides/nativ...

2 months ago 4 2 0 0
The Utility of Home Molecular Virology | RByers Lab

6 years and 300+ experiments later, I've concluded that sequencing all the viruses going through my house is actually slightly useful, while still wildly impractical of course!
lab.rbyers.ca/essays/20260...

2 months ago 11 7 1 1

Yeah if there's someone who could justify $100k+ (maybe $1M+) in browser engineering costs, it might be possible to get that done. And yes hiring Igalia would likely be the most practical way.

2 months ago 2 0 0 0

In my experience, vague concerns are often a sign that the cost / benefit tradeoff is considered poor - high cost for low benefit. Decreasing the cost a bit by reducing the privacy and security risks will not likely be sufficient to make the overall equation look good.

2 months ago 3 0 1 0

Are you looking for Apple / Mozilla to actually invest in the work? Or is there some external contributor who might do all the work and would just need Apple / Mozilla to agree to ship it and review patches? Those are very different states which require very different strategies in my opinion.

2 months ago 2 0 1 0
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Wow, I am constantly impressed by Google Antigravity and Gemini 3.5 pro. I used it to build a whole blog website, including totally custom Tweet archive, in just a few hours of work! Eg. see lab.rbyers.ca/posts/2024. Code at github.com/Rbyers/lab-b....

2 months ago 3 1 0 0

Nice, which product? I guess I'm paying about $3.40 USD each when I order 50 preps at a time (not including shipping).

2 months ago 0 0 1 0
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2 months ago 1 0 1 0
How To Get Your Boss To Let You Work On Web Performance, by Rick Byers of Google.
How To Get Your Boss To Let You Work On Web Performance, by Rick Byers of Google. YouTube video by Henri Helvetica

My talk at @henrihelvetica.bsky.social's SPDY meetup in Toronto is live: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq2c.... It's pretty rough and unpolished, but I included some fun stories of the history of performance work in Chrome which you likely can't find anywhere else. Slides: docs.google.com/presentation...

3 months ago 7 3 1 0
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That feeling when a family member shares photos like this 🀬😭. I spent much of Sunday formatting and reinstalling Windows, and formulating a credit card transaction dispute.

3 months ago 1 0 0 0
Me with a sled and very snowy

Me with a sled and very snowy

People tobogganing

People tobogganing

I hosted a number of visiting global Chrome leads in Waterloo this week. Several had never seen snow quite like we had today, so of course we had to take them tobogganing. Looks like we'll be doing Chrome leads summits in Canada every winter now πŸ˜‚.

3 months ago 14 0 0 0

The Chrome Identity and Payments team in Waterloo Canada is hiring several early/mid-career developers. I'm on the lookout for exceptional candidates with a passion for browsers and/or the identity/payments space! www.linkedin.com/posts/rick-b...

3 months ago 10 4 0 1

Progressive enhancement is really important for enabling the best possible user experiences for everyone!

4 months ago 12 1 0 0

Aw, very kind but I'm mainly just the messenger.

4 months ago 0 0 0 0
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GitHub - explainers-by-googlers/cpu-performance: An API that exposes some information about how powerful the user device is. An API that exposes some information about how powerful the user device is. - explainers-by-googlers/cpu-performance

✨ Exciting proposal alert: the CPU Performance API.

This proposal will add `navigator.cpuPerformance`, a value that measures the broad performance capability of the CPU.

That way, we can scale up/down our animations to make sure everyone has the best experience possible for their device. πŸ˜„

4 months ago 84 12 6 1
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So I subscribe on Android instead and see it's about 25% cheaper there ($2.99/mo vs. $3.99), with the creator presumably getting the extra 5%. Yay!

4 months ago 4 0 0 0

I almost completed it until I noticed the text "cancel at any time in Apple settings". Wait, oh right, only 49% of my money will go to the creator! 21% to YouTube for the platform/serving and 30% to Apple for ... what exactly?

4 months ago 3 0 1 0
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Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell Animation videos explaining things with optimistic nihilism since 12,013. We’re a team of illustrators, animators, number crunchers and one dog who aim to spark curiosity about science and the world ...

I just almost made a dumb mistake. I've been enjoying Kurzgesagt videos for years (on various devices). After watching their video on AI slop I figured it was time to support them on a recurring basis, so I hit the join button... youtu.be/_zfN9wnPvU0?...

4 months ago 4 0 1 0

It was fun to be part of this, thanks Henri!

I wasn't able to join the livestream for the rest today but really looking forward to listening to it over the next couple days!

4 months ago 4 0 0 0

Yup. But also predicting the next token from a massive amount of data is probably a very biologically relevant and powerful capability.

4 months ago 1 0 1 0

We never thought Chrome would get so popular. Of course I don't personally think we "went wrong", but it sure is more fun and celebrated to be in the back racing to catch up. It feels like some of that again now with all the AI competition and it's invigorating!

4 months ago 1 0 0 0

Yeah I appreciate that. "We supported it, then changed our minds" also isn't totally wrong. It's just that we supported experimentation behind a flag (like always) and when it came time to make the key one-way-door decision of shipping it, we thought the cost/benefit tradeoff didn't look good.

4 months ago 1 0 0 0
This chart displays the number of features that are missing in exactly one major browser, for each browser. The counted features are present in all browsers except that browser. Each of the features would be considered Baseline once the feature is supported in the corresponding browser.

Chart showing Firefox climbing to about 50, Safari falling to about 50 and Chrome/Edge holding steady at about 10.

This chart displays the number of features that are missing in exactly one major browser, for each browser. The counted features are present in all browsers except that browser. Each of the features would be considered Baseline once the feature is supported in the corresponding browser. Chart showing Firefox climbing to about 50, Safari falling to about 50 and Chrome/Edge holding steady at about 10.

Now, if two engines have shipped a feature for an extended period and the third is still holding out, that's something to be suspicious of! We are always keeping an eye on the data to try to ensure Chromium isn't holding back interoperability. webstatus.dev/stats

4 months ago 5 0 0 0