Alibaba got caught doing some invasive fingerprinting that actually interrupted a user's workflow. (Normally they're more stealthy than that.) https://blog.laserphile.com/2026/08/aliexpress-webpage-keeping-multipoint.html
I did a quick write-up about Firefox's efforts (and success) neutering this fingerprinting vector https://ritter.vg/blog-webaudio_alibaba.html
There’s a new HTML in town that provides a much better interface for geolocation than the older API. Daniel Schwarz is here to explain how it all works together.
piccalil.li/blog/a-look-...
A look at the geolocation HTML...
I'd say I was pretty aware of all the possibilities and information my browser shares about me, but it's still wild to see all this data in black and white. :/
macOS users interested in #CrossOriginStorage: you can now run a test build with the Cross-Origin Storage API behind a flag 🚩: https://github.com/tomayac/Chromium/releases/download/chromium-cos-linux-x64-2026-08-17/chromium-cos-macos-arm64.zip. In `about://flags`, search for Cross-Origin Storage, set it to Enabled, restart when prompted. To un-quarantine the binary, see https://github.com/tomayac/Chromium/releases#:~:text=macOS%20on%20Apple%20Silicon%20(arm64).
To target multiple classes with the same prefix, you'd typically have to resort to brittle attribute selectors. To make things easier, CSS is getting a new selector: the “Class Prefix Selector” (`.foo-*`).
Check https://brm.us/class-prefix-selector to get the details.
(Browser Support: None 😛 — just resolved!)
🚀 I made a smol ~2kb syntax highlighter that uses the CSS `::highlight()` API.
- About 2 KiB compressed
- No runtime dependencies
- Uses `::highlight()` not `<span>`
- Languages loaded on-demand
- Human readable CSS themes + light-dark()
- Editable code block support
- And a custom element for more features!
CSS text-box is newly baseline, and it's solves a common text layout issue. Here's how it works:
New Blog post that goes along with the video - Enhanced Spell Checking on the Web...
Blink: Intent to Prototype: Cross-Origin Storage
Blink: Intent to Prototype: C...
The German competition regulator, the Bundeskartellamt, investigated Apple's self-preferencing in prompts for its “Apple Tracking Transparency Framework” (ATT). Apple sobbed that it WOULD NEVER and always behaves impeccably, but has committed to "align the consent prompts for its own offerings and for third-party apps" and "also reduce the complexity of the current consent request architecture for third-party providers". https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/EN/Pressemitteilungen/2026/08_17_2026_Apple_ATTF.html
Reading a Performance Profile: Field Guide:
https://perf.reviews/profile-guide. A fantastic interactive guide by @nucliweb on how to read a performance profile in Chrome DevTools. 👏
🤩 It's happening!!1! I just sent the "Intent to Prototype" email for the #CrossOriginStorage API: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/p5nq70aN63o/m/uNm_oaEOBQAJ. If you want to stay in the loop, star the ☂️ umbrella Chromium bug https://crbug.com/547587764 (and the subtask bugs: https://crbug.com/547587764/dependencies).
Here’s my review of Qwen 3.8 27B - I can't remember the last time I've had this much fun playing with a local model that runs on my own computers https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/16/qwen-38-27b/
😎 Chromium (personal fork) passing all Web Platform Tests of the #CrossOriginStorage API.
* WIP CL: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/8256403
* Runnable binary: https://github.com/tomayac/Chromium/releases (Linux x86_64)
Finally a good explanation of the text watermarking Anthropic will apply to Claude-generated content: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-text-watermark. They even link to the SynthID paper their approach is based upon, and have a real-world example so even lay persons should be able to understand the technique. I don't blame them for using "words" instead of "tokens" in the context of this article.
Progressive Web Apps mostly rock. @grooovinger lists what works and what still doesn’t: URLs and the back button behave the way the web intended, there are no 100MB downloads, and an update reaches users in one page reload instead of days of app review. The pain points are iOS install flows, Chromium install prompts driven by shifting heuristics, in-app browsers for outbound links, and missing capabilities like reading the WiFi network name. #pwa #browser
https://grooovinger.com/notes/progressive-web-apps-mostly-rock
Blink: Intent to Prototype: WebHID on Android
Blink: Intent to Prototype: W...
Look, ma, that's WebKit 🧭 passing all Web Platform Tests for #CrossOriginStorage. And you can try it: https://github.com/tomayac/WebKit/releases (personal fork)! That's now four prototype implementations of the API in four different browsers: https://github.com/tomayac/awesome-cross-origin-storage#prototype-browser-implementations (all of them with releases you can run).
<input type="checkbox" switch> is coming to Chromium-based browsers!
My team is currently adding the implementation at https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/8190074/1
For the first time you can try the #CrossOriginStorage API on a "real" browser—after the still in-development browsers [shells] Servo and Ladybird: I managed to implement the API in proper Firefox 🦊: https://github.com/tomayac/awesome-cross-origin-storage/#prototype-browser-implementations (Note that all of those are personal experimental builds.)