Engineer on Google Chrome, helping the open web thrive. Opinions are my own, not my employer's. 🦋: @rbyers.net 🐘: @RickByers@toot.cafe
Waterloo, ON, Canada
Joined October 2008
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It might end up being just me reflecting to myself while appreciating the exhibits, or just you and me chatting for 10 min, or we might get 100 web enthusiasts and continue on to Sports Page across the street for food and drinks together. Regardless I'm sure it'll be fun! [8/8]
This is in no way a Google event, just me and like minded friends as individual fans of the open web and humble students of the history of information technology. [7/8]
- what capabilities are still missing from the web platform vs. the platform being "good enough".
- reducing friction, lag, jank, scams, noise and just generally improving UX quality of the web while also improving interoperability across browsers. [6/8]
- the role of government-issued identity and implications of age regulations
- AI assisted web development
- browser and engine diversity and competition
- the ecosystem impacts of open vs. closed source and Chromium in particular
[5/8]
Particular topics of interest to me include:
- web content economics especially given the AI-fueled future
- reputation and trust and trade-offs with openness
- tensions between privacy and safety online
[4/8]
Late summer at Google is when we most think about big goals for the future. As one of Chrome's overall technical leaders I've been reflecting on the future of the web and what investments I'd most like to see around Chromium in 2026. [3/8]
Due to the Air Canada strike I've found myself unexpectedly in the bay area with no plans today. [2/8]
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! [1/8]
How have I gone 46 years without experiencing the joy of enterprise-grade network gear at home? Worth every penny...
Thank goodness for "request desktop site"! The ability of web browsers to lie to developers at the request of their users is perhaps one of the most important browser engineering principles, one rarely found in other platforms. w3.org/TR/design-principles/…
And then: "Apple used to do that, they don't anymore".
So what's easier for the AI era, Apple to fix their developer culture or Microsoft and/or Google to fix their hardware ecosystem?
Ben Thompson @sharptechpod: "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."
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: piped.video/watch?v=nTaAKbK6…
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!
Rick Byers retweeted
Proud to be a part of this new initiative helping to fund innovation across the web! So many have made @ChromiumDev what it is today & we hope this helps increase support & collaboration to advance the project and Chromium ecosystem:
blog.chromium.org/2025/01/an… 🎉🕸️
I was happy to easily use on-device AI rather than deal with rate limits, maximum monthly request limits and billing configuration! See developer.chrome.com/docs/ai… and my quick and dirty code for this is at rbyers.github.io/prompt-cate…
