Rick Byers

@rbyers.net

624 Followers 181 Following

Web Platform engineer at Google on the Chrome team, helping the open web to thrive. Opinions are my own, not my employer's.

Chart with caption: Stores with faster LCP consistently show higher conversion rates. Even when controlling for other performance factors, the relationship remains strong.
A web app with poor layout and excessive wrapping on a phone-sized screen.
Me with a sled and very snowy
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.
E-mail from Rick Byers to blink-dev saying: Hi everyone, Since JPEG XL was last evaluated, Safari has shipped support and Firefox has updated their position. We also continue to see developer signals for this in bug upvotes, Interop proposals, and survey data. There was also a recent announcement that JPEG XL will be added to PDF. Given these positive signals, we would welcome contributions to integrate a performant and memory-safe JPEG XL decoder in Chromium. In order to enable it by default in Chromium we would need a commitment to long-term maintenance. With those and our usual launch criteria met, we would ship it in Chrome. Rick (on behalf of Chrome ATLs)
Unformatted and nearly unreadable bugs.webkit.org webpage with console showing lots of 503 errors.
Rendering of new Google building in Kitchener Ontario
Water birds in a pond in the bay
Photo of computer history museum exhibits
Aruba Instant on AP mounted on the ceiling in a house.
Imagine of cline vscode extension showing it opening a browser window and testing the UI. "Perfect! The raw status text is now properly left-aligned in the modal."
Radiacode 102 device against a fossil of a mosasaur jaw (3 pieces placed in matrix, not natural). The screen reads 0.43 µSv/hr and a red warning light is visible.
Blink contributors by organization over time, with Google holding steady around 80%
Chart of total reviews in chromium by organization (excluding Google) and time. Recently Microsoft had surged to double their prior peak, well ahead of any other organization.
Similar chart shape as contributors but for reviewers.
Chart showing chromium contributors by organization. Microsoft rises steeply in 2019 then from 2020 to 2024 falls steadily, then sharply rises back to nearly its peak.
Looking out the rear window of a car to see a police car with a "NASA" logo on the door.
Racoon poking out of the wheel well of a Tesla model 3
Number of monthly commits from 2006 to 2024 with chromium growing steadily to 10,000, gecko being relatively steady around 4000, WebKit growing until 2013 then falling to around a steady 1000, and Ladybird and Gecko staying under a thousand.
In particular, Apple’s rules appear to be holding back a category of apps known as ‘progressive web apps’ (PWAs) that are lower cost and easier for developers to build since they can run on any operating system. PWAs do not need to be listed on an app store and are not subject to app store charges. They can be saved onto a home screen like native apps. PWAs are offered by companies such as Spotify, Facebook, Trivago and Pinterest. Many smaller UK app developers told us that limits on web apps are holding back their business because they could be developing PWAs as a comparable and lower cost alternative to developing a native app.
Bag of softener salt with "easy open bag" label in the top right corner pointing at a barely visible perforated strip.