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by bevr1337 298 days ago
A/B testing the removal of a browser standard gives me pause. Is there precedent for that?
3 comments

Yes, they've done it before. Some example:

onunload: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/deprecating-u...

Mutation events (replaced by MutationObserver): https://developer.chrome.com/blog/mutation-events-deprecatio...

FTP URLs: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/deps-rems-95#ftp_support_r...

Here's useful documentation on their process, which they sometimes call Chrome Variations and sometimes Origin Trials: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/chrome-variat...

They may be talking about actually removing whole standards not just specifics of standards like this. FTP is close but it was always adjacent to web browsing. Perhaps HTTP 1.0 removal is closest, but is a different level of abstraction than XSLT which is potentially and subtly everywhere.
SameSite by default cookies come to mind: https://www.chromium.org/updates/same-site/ (and to be clear, this is a removal of functionality. The "feature" is to make cookies not work in certain contexts)

Outside of web browsers, i think X11 is somewhat famous for this sort of thing.

They removed JXL support just when it was increasing popularity so it didn't interfere with their AVIF plans.