Yehuda Katz and I recently asked this question on Twitter.

What is the one browser bug you could fix or feature you could add to significantly improve what you could build on the web? — wycats (@wycats) October 4, 2011

We’re very interested in seeing web browsers advance and implement the interests of web developers.

We got a great response (230+ responses). After a triage of the responses, we narrowed down things to a hitlist that jumped out as having no immediate solution and would be great for the platform:

flash capturing keyboard events, cursor

WYSIWYG form element

inset text shadow

css blend modes usecase: image i want to tint on hover

Why CORS requires a preflight with cookies disabled

being able to verify the content sent was the content delivered. Probably via headers & apis useful when deploying for mobile/roaming use or in corporate networks when behind proxies.

Text Flow or caret(Position/Range)FromPoint

A unified and publicized set of selectors for styling the shadow dom of input/select/etc. elements

a way to manipulate asset request urls with js on the client before they go out (for serving responsive imgs, etc). or media query attributes on image tags

UIKit for Javascript. Native UI bindings to JS that remove overhead and layers of HTML+DOM in the way. Sony’s Trilithium did this by binding HW accelerated scene graph, ala Core Animation. see also playstation webapp

render a DOM element to canvas, webgl

DirectWrite in all browsers on all platforms.

simulate keyboard and CLICK events

a base tag for CSS

Filesystem API limitation: IDE cant save files back to disk in original location

XHR2

fragment.innerHTML

There are a lot more where that came from. A few people wanted to see all the responses… So.. here you are. :)

Right now they are partially categorized. I’d love your help with that.. Thank you SO much to rworth and evan, who organized this list. Awesome :)

Broad and Sweeping

a fundamental rethinking of the DOM would be a good start. ~blrandel

Get rid of HTML. Make web JavaScript/CSS driven. ~nextinterfaces

the standards process ~sethladd

Browsers suck. Give us a VM that lets us not care about the browser. ~rxgx

the “feature” that allows browsers to render bad/poorly formed HTML. I want that fixed please. ~durple

In a perfect world I’d say ditch the DOM and give me a real displaylist-style interface, with a consistent composite architecture. ~awebneck

consistent implementation of standards across browsers. ~BrettBearce

performance ~mislav

Should be ilegal to release a browser that doesn’t accomplish all the w3c standards ~FedePaterno

web page cloud pre render. Then pipe one asset to the browser. :-) ~halfcube

create something that makes ads suck less and do not blocking my page ~jaydson

Just Everything, all of it, and then some

all HTML5 features supported by all browsers. ~chrisreister

full html5/css3 support cross browser and signed off specs! #inaperfectworld ~Japhex

Better support for html5 and css3 (all browsers and platforms) = less hacks, less vendor prefixes, less js = happier life :) ~rodrigonoales

IE & Mixed Browser Support

Can I say “IE”? Or is that joke too overdone already? ~coreyschram

as usual, IE is holding everything up. I’d like wide support for SVG today. ~nathan_vaughn

other browsers to keep up the speed of Chrome’s implementation of standards and to auto-update to latest version ~illyriad

force update IE. ~Fallion

An alternative to animated gifs (apng)! FOR GOD’S SAKE!! ~TechBobOmb

fast upgrade cycle for IE comparable to Chrome’s excellent model, and the dropping of compatibility modes going forwards ~ffub

Add support for data:image/png;base64, … to IE6/7. ~ndorfin

sorry, release schedule != update strategy; the latter is what I meant to say. Resubmitting… ~jswartwood

IE’s update strategy. Most important feature to add to the Web is an ability to use feature X in reasonable time. ~jswartwood

how many people answered with IE? ~omarqureshi

Legacy Internet Explorers. Patch them all to autoupdate to IE9+ or a third party engine. ~joegaffey

i’d fix the ‘Microsoft having a browser’ bug ~shanecarmody

oh yeah ie7,8,9 ~negrond

ie6 ~negrond

Advanced CSS3 selectors in IE7 and 8. If I had to choose one it would be nth-child. ~Chris_Krammer

if I had the chance to fix one it would be to get rid of IE. :) ~markbates

IE ~samullen

One browser bug? It’s the one people refer to as “Internet Explorer.” It’s a notorious bug. Evil bug. ~rerouse

the IE self destruct button! ~jeremywoertink

the complete removal of ie 6 and upgrade of everybody to modern browsers ~Mark_Kellett

IE6-8 ~manufaktor

am I allowed to classify everything < IE 10 as a bug? ~chrisdarroch

Can the bug be ie? ~bbommarito

legacy browsers! And all browsers which don’t auto update ~stefanpenner

And of course a forceful auto-update of all IE installations to version 9 :) ~craigpatik

frequent & transparent update for all browsers like Chrome, more coherence on supported features across browsers ~xeppelin

the one browser bug would be to eliminate all versions of IE. ~stash_tray

Internet Explorer. ‘nuff said. ~aviraldg

Auto upgrade for every browser. ~ojohnnyo

regular silent automatic delta updates. ~simbolo

Bug fix: Android browser. ~kylebarrow

automatic Chrome-like updates (along with actual updates) for IE…? #nevergonnahappen ~alexrussell101

Does killing all IE below 8 count? ;) ~ryanolson

I’d add a feature to Chrome that “accidentally” detects IE as a virus and deletes it from the user’s machine. ~wmbenedetto

chrome! ~JomGapuz

That’s easy … it’s called Internet Explorer #abug ~trymbill

An easier way to communicate with databases? and microsoft deprecate IE6 & 7. ~Tsouloftas

Internet Explorer retroactively updating itself ~MyHeroDevon

automatic updates for all browsers (ie like chrome). rate of innovation would skyrocket ~smartalec43

a browser on Android that auto-updates ~boblet

Browser bug to fix? I’d say, make every browser with out-of-date rendering instantly bitch-slap the user until they upgrade. ~J6M8

to that end, mobile web browsers have terrible documentation on what features they support/don’t support. ~bcardarella

Silent auto updates for IE. If only there were a way to cut that half life… #webdeveloperheaven ~josiahsprague

I suppose IE is the main reason For not improving my websites. ~gerherz

Desktop, the bug I’d like fixed is “IE” ~ljharb

Crossbrowsing for christ sick! I wish I can see one day all browsers rendering the sites in the exactly same way once for all! ~FedePaterno

I would fix IE6 so it would automatically crash itself as soon as anyone decided to open it. ~adamholwerda

Can Internet Explorer be considered a bug or feature I’d like to improve… aka eliminate? ~JtheBruce

Android is woefully behind desktop Chrome. ~andybastable

“the one browser bug” = Android. ~danmux

Decent HW rendering in Android please ~danmux

Authentication / Identity / Crypto

identity. I hate having to create a username and password. ~sethladd

Integrated browser authentication. When’s the last time you logged in to a native app? ~madeofcode

Identity, in a way that’s comprehensible and controllable by the user. ~johnjoseph

And w3.org/2011/identity-… will be a great advance too ~cbullokles

I wish I didn’t have to handle identity and SSL. Let my users sign in with existing credentials, and an assurance of encryption. ~abackstrom

a full crypto & authentication stack ~jarrednicholls

Add SSL over HTTP (instead of HTTP over SSL) to handle Certificate-based authentication in the application instead of the web server ~genezys

secure storage for things like OAuth keys (no more proxies needed) ~manuel

Browser Testing

A better way to test across browsers and browser versions. ~jacelevine

Better memory debugging tools. Like YourKit for JavaScript ~sethladd

i’d say a built-in vim-style code editor w/ git hooks. maybe… ~csanz

saving changes (js,html,css) made thru google chrome dev tool/firebug directly back into the codebase would be cool. ~4mo1

an ssh client integrated into google chrome ~travisglines

ability to debug CoffeeScript in the browser would have high impact (ideally with IDE/editor integration during debugging) ~ltackmann

Merge firebug’s realtime CSS editor with chrome developer tools ~danielcgold

combine the IDE and the browser. ~jwaltonmedia

Summary of my position — improved native development experience over features that I haven’t imagined yet :) ~justinfrench

I’ve been making use of the 3D CSS3 box model inspector in Dev Tools for a heavy interactive site. Godsend. Thank you dude ~joecritchley

a better developer tools for IE, remote debugging for iPad ~mohsen__

something that will fill in a form while I’m testing client side validation, checkout, etc. ~jwaltonmedia

UIKit for JavaScript. ~sandofsky

And a built-in bandwidth throttler / slow-mo mode. ~kpk

Languages

I want a new client language. I’d love to see browsers switch to bytecode that we can compile other languages down to. ~michael_tomer

Browsers that can be scripted in languages other than Javascript. (I know, Native Client is attempting this). ~suranyami

The “Browser VM” should allow us to have multiple language implementations. An expressive bytecode, not minimized JavaScript. ~twcrone

a VM one layer below JS (ex, LLVM).. to allow us to start innovating languages that run in the browser. JS is not the end all. ~igrigorik

JavaScript always, everywhere. Whatever extra security browsers need to release, so devs can rely on JS always being there. ~webandy

the lack of multiple mature programming language inside the browser environment. ~trek

Ruby as a scripting language ~elado

Sass and Coffeescript built into a browser ~anthonyshort

Language Features

a way to know if a JavaScript function is actually meant to return something even if this return value is ‘undefined’. ~_sebastienp

would love if all browsers supported noSuchMethod for some elegant script solutions. ~KaptajnKold

for some elegant script solutions. ~KaptajnKold If we could actually use some of the new Javascript features… ~nicobrevin

Garbage collection. ~jayarjo

operator overloading in #js would ease peoples’ lives when working on gfx stuff ~philogb

Actually fixing altering any built in object’s .prototype in general doesn’t do horrible things, notably DOM objects. ~Rory_O

Fixing Object.prototype erik.eae.net/archives/2005/… ~Rory_O

Support for Javascript versions > 1.5 in Chrome and Safari. Specifically: I want to use generators and iterators. ~jonemo

decoupling JS parsing from load ~derSchepp

Media

Have the ability to pause/mute all media in all other tabs. ex: Mute google music/pandora tab when I hit play on a youtube vid. ~JoeSloth

a solid audio api especially on mobile browsers would be great. Esp. for gaming :) ~wemakedotcoms

Easily HTML5 Video and Audio at the moment. ~webfella

audio and video input and encoding. ~dshaw

more audio/video codecs built in ~masterkain

i’ll go with html5 audio and video also… ~rguarilha

also being able to know how many simultaneous HTML5 Audio objects you support in the current platform would be great. ~Fokker680

If talking about Chrome, video masking with overflow hidden. ~gerherz

the state of video delivery in and across the browsers is still quite sad. but not an individual browser issue per se. ~jerememonteau

Good audio support for mobile browsers. ~andybastable

HTML5 Forms

universal support for styleable input types (date/time/range/etc) ~franksvalli

A rock solid native WYSIWYG form element. With so much content dev being done online, this is an area that seems really behind. ~reinink

file uploads need rethinking. ~sikander

DOM

a “Create” event launched when a new dom node is inserted ~JohnHackworth

Quietly fail and move on when calling a method on a non-existent object : doc.getElementById(“does-not-exist”).innerHTML = … ~craigpatik

Keyboard

Consistent handling of keypress/keydown events across browsers and OSes would be killer. ~pyrolupus

Mouse / Touch

gesture events like swipes and flicks built-in as DOM events ~manuel

doing touch without listening to three events for each gesture ~mohsen__

now that comes from a cat avatar: an element that catches the mouse would be awesome for games or panorama viewer ~Flexi23

Device input

Media Capture API! 21st century, and we are still limited to the text-only input on the web! ~matas_petrikas

Access to the FS, to the devices (camera, sensors, readers, scaners…), direct access to the GPU (3D and complex calculations) ~gandazgul

Device APIs. Accelerometer, camera, contacts, etc. ~filmaj

Access to device capabilities from a website. gps, gyro,etc. ~ivanmarcin

it will never happen, but support for more native functionality like file system, camera, etc… on mobile ~bcardarella

Safe, sandboxed way to communicate with user’s hardware (GPU, filesystem, camera, etc.)—but that’s already on the way. ~valueof

<input type="voice"> and <input type="webcam"> ~TimoKissing

and ~TimoKissing oh, also, device access! shouldn’t need flash to get to the camera and mic. ~jerememonteau

device api, the use cases increases significantly on mobile . ~vivianli

w3.org/2009/dap/ ~jamespearce

Device APIs. ~jamespearce

Mobile, file inputs = camera access ~ljharb

Flash

Inconsistent keyboard trap issues, often by Flash content. Causes accessibility issues and annoys me no end - when in a YouTube video in Firefox, ctrl+t\ctrl+w no longer work for closing\creating tabs, and focus gets stuck in player ~joechidzik

CSS

Ah, forgot something veeeery important: @viewport! ~derSchepp

if CSS could do math. Ex) height: 100% - 20px; ~justindross

I’d like css files to have a ‘root’ variable where you could set the home directory. ~davidrhoden

Implementation of CSS Paged Media. To me this seems to be the missing link of modern technology. ~Rene_Kriest

a way to disable, or set the device orientation. PLEASE. We need that. ~Fokker680

background image rendering in firefox. I dislike how it needs either a or text to start rendering the image. ~joshsager

CSS Filters ~derSchepp

an adaptive image file format. ~derSchepp

media queries attrs on base/img tags. Will enable downloading smaller images for smaller screens. ~yoavweiss

a way to manipulate asset request urls with js on the client before they go out (for serving responsive imgs, etc). …which already worked until a couple months ago when browser img prefetching became more aggressive. ~scottjehl

The one annoying me at the moment is the landscape rotation bug in Mobile Safari: tinyurl.com/5sr7qkm ~Pipsqueaks

Styling

CSS blendmodes. div{blendmode:’overlay’} but also div{background:’multiply’ rgba(0,0,0,.3)} + for div{color:’add’ #fff} ~mknol

css blend modes ~waynethebrain

blending modes. Like multiply/overlay/etc in PS. ~gb

Full support for @ page w3.org/TR/CSS2/page.h… ~sanbeiji

I’d fix pixel overflow & underflow in IE Chrome & Safari. ~jon_neal

this would for me be to not use curvycorners js hacks to get rounded borders to work in IE ~Iclevettdesigns

multiple background images. ~Iclevettdesigns

A unified and publicized set of selectors for styling the shadow dom of input/select/etc. elements ~JasonWyatt

I’d like CSS to have an inherit:none feature, especially helpful when you’re inheriting from styles you have no control over. ~JayDWhiting

Text

text-stretch. :) ~jonas_lund

Proper text anti-aliasing on Chrome. Large type looks awful. Note: IE and FF have this already. ~andybastable

Text Flow or caret(Position/Range)FromPoint. I’ve spent weeks on columns, text flow, and non-contenteditable wysiwyg, etc. ~grayrest

Give me inset text-shadows in all browsers and proper edge antialiasing in Chrome and I’m all yours. ~matthewmorek

There is some small bug with text sometimes (become lighter a bit, when canvas is loaded to that page). ~slobodan_

Kerning and consistent type anti-aliasing across all platforms :) ~endtwist

DirectWrite in all browsers on all platforms. ~H_FJ

Layout

absolute centering of images etc in a given div would be one ~yemster

I want rock solid layout. Like flexbox/ms-grid including vertical alignment. Basically, table-layout without the tables. ~b4nn0n

Strong finalized layout system. Strong forms support for real apps. HTML CSS JS unreachable for the user. No way to modify pages ~fpiat

better CSS layouts. I know it’s coming, not fast enough ~sethladd

A real layout system :) ~natecavanaugh

it shouldn’t be so difficult to build columns and vertically center things. Seriously why are these still problematic. ~nathan_vaughn

layout. hands down. ~boblet

Add sane CSS-based layouts to all browsers. ~jon_neal

flexbox everywhere ~mislav

Have css3 column-count and width work in all browsers, but revert to a stack in resolutions below multi-column width. ~J_Grimm_

position:fixed and overflow:scroll on all desktop and mobile browsers would make my day ~prundin

Vertical and “middle” float. I want to be able to put elements in the middle of other elements, horizontally and vertically. ~iliadraznin

My #1 is a simply a better layout system. Flexbox = meh. ~roblifford

a box model that programatically closer to an AS3 sprite ~darrownet

display:table in IE6 ~SubtleGradient

Mobile, position: fixed. ~ljharb

WYSIWYG / Native rich-text editor

All contenteditable related madness: commands, generated HTML, and selection API ~jpscaletti

more consistent and improved implementation of contenteditable. That would really improve and slim down web based editors. ~DannySorensen

Animation

Broader hardware-acceleration coverage for the display layer. The richness of native mobile/flash is driven by unflinching 60fps. ~teej_m

I want to stop repainting from flickering and screwing with my animations. ~tdreyno

Bugfix: Hardware-accelerated DOM manipulation using translate3d on Android Browser. ~bniswe

(smooth) #CSS3 animations for ALL browsers! ~AndrewHenderson

transition/animate pseudo-elements! ~jacobdubail

On Android. Hardware Accelerated CSS Transforms. ~edwk

CSS transitions (they’re just slow and outclassed by javascript in terms of speed) ~thijsjacobs

Decent HW rendering in Android please ~danmux

2d graphics / Canvas / SVG

Acceleration/performance on SVG. Also think I found a leak with SVG in Chrome when tabs are hidden (but no repro yet). ~notmatt

Faster drawing with 2d canvas context. ~monteslu

There is some small bug with text sometimes (become lighter a bit, when canvas is loaded to that page). ~slobodan_

Good Canvas support for mobile browsers. ~andybastable

canvas.drawWindow. Don’t even see why it should be restricted to extensions (except in the case of cross domain content) ~bgrins

Sony’s Trilithium did this by binding HW accelerated scene graph, ala Core Animation. satine.org/archives/2011/… ~charlietuna

3d graphics / WebGL

compressed textures for webgl, and everything else people already said. ~sethladd

WebGL support in IE would change a lot when it comes to browser games. For 3D as well as 2D. ~ippalix

Good WebGL support for mobile browsers. ~andybastable

Web Storage

Making localStorage infinite size ~nikolatankovic

Web storage and offline use is a huge mess, even on latest gecko/webkit ~alexbosworth

History

full acceptance of the History API & Ajax. It’s all about user experience. ~Scottblew

Make browsers understand previous states so that Ajax and back-btn & bookmaring can be implemented easier/seamlessly. ~vmasto

File API

Not easy but (until we’re all cloud based), a rich and safe way to write webapps to handle local files too crbug.com/47416 That would let us write webapps to replace all sorts of things that currently have to be desktop apps ~schmerg

all browsers need stable and consistent support of the JS File API ~MeltingIce

integration with the desktop and OS (file API is one of the first things) ~dnagir

File Uploads

resumable, managed, async browser based file uploads ~tilsammans

Offline / App Cache

a better app cache API (with improved debugging) stevesouders.com/blog/2011/10/0… ~alex_gibson

Web storage and offline use is a huge mess, even on latest gecko/webkit ~alexbosworth

app cache that doesn’t suck. ~miketaylr

Fix network-connection JS events:we have online/offline for hardware but what about netonline/netoffline for Inet traffic tests? ~adamrmcd

I’m going to +1 application cache. @SlexAxton @miketaylr & @julio_ody ~benschwarz

that the offline HTML5 API would give a lot more control over the cache. Not sure that’s what you asked though ~julio_ody

Firefoxes app cache permission requester ~derSchepp

Communication and Web Sockets

I’d vote for some way to do P2P connections, or at least some way of opening arbitrary ports in some secure, sandboxed way. ~rakesh314

Websockets… ~okinsey

Secure websockets on all browsers will make creating web apps easier. That is a dream right now. ~chrisreister

Uniform websocket support across all browsers. ~clofresh

Cross domain xhr (as a new session, without the cookies of the original site) ~elado

cross domain xhr, but creating a new session and not sending the original cookies. could save jsonp/proxies. ~elado

universal support of push notifications without the browser being open. ~ChrisLove

not The Single Bug, but here’s one: being able to verify the content sent was the content delivered. Probably via headers & apis. Useful when deploying for mobile/roaming use or in corporate networks when behind proxies. ~rem

better support for XHR-2 on mobile. iOS partially supports but barely. in the case of the XHR-2 stuff it replaces the API, with a much less functional API on iOS :( PhoneGap is making the effort, but it needs to act as a polyfill and not a replacement API ~bcardarella

cross domain xhr, but creating a new session and not sending the original cookies. could save jsonp/proxies. ~elado

if could ask for my last gift to the three wise men I’d like peer to peer communication, with WebRTC is close to be here ~cbullokles

Desktop / OS Integration

more OS integrations (like file upload from iOS, access to camera, cross-platform dragdrop files) ~mislav

fullscreen maybe ~slobodan_

integration with the desktop and OS (file API is one of the first things) ~dnagir

On the desktop: Intents (cross app integration). ~edwk

Widgets

Begin supporting the W3C Widget spec. ~mwbrooks

I really like the support to w3c widgets included in opera. It helps to package web applications as normal apps ~cbullokles

Greater steps towards W3C Widgets ~mwbrooks

better encapsulation similar to Mozillas XUL widgets seems like a big one. ~blrandel

Browser Extensions

also actual cross-browser extensions APIs and packaging while you’re handing out unicorn lollipops. ~miketaylr

Browser UI (App-land)

Modifying native context menu. ~JanKuca

Access to system-level elements. Buttons, contextual menu, etc. Why can my web app look more like a desktop app? ~sternmeyer

Firefox’s rogue input styling that differs from all other browsers. Inability to style input elements in general in Firefox. ~taitems

Browser UI (User-land)

I usually close browser tabs with shortcuts, the “x”, is actually a hazard for me. Thankfullly there’s command-shift-T to reopen. ~ckundo

Showing which of the 30 tabs I have open just started playing that song everyone hates, with some kind of icon/colour change? ~josscrowcroft

an option to freeze all non-active tabs and browser instances to gain performance and a disruption free browsing experience ~tuskali

Browser features (out of scope)

a bit late but still, id include in every browser a feature like “safari reader” (not as extension) and make width resizeable ~askoth

not having web inspector’s CSS panel jump to the top of the declaration every time I double-click a rule to make a live change. ~mklickman

file:/// in Chrome. But it would never get accepted :p ~me1000

better bookmarking. Implement thematic and context sensitive trails the way Vannevar Bush envisioned. ~mik3cap

And a built-in bandwidth throttler / slow-mo mode. ~kpk

Ummmm