Full Description

Google is making headline news once again as it reverses course on a decision to block third-party cookies in its Chrome browser. After years of testing, planning, and delays, Google scrapped a plan to turn off third-party cookie tracking by default like Safari and Firefox already do. It’s a disappointing turn of events for Chrome users looking forward to less ads following them, but not entirely a surprise considering how much of Google’s revenue is generated by ad dollars. In other news, the annual CSS Working Group meeting wrapped up recently, and some of the exciting features the group will be focusing on this year include: the if() statement for conditional styling, cross document view transitions without the need for a JavaScript library, and (perhaps the most anticipated feature) cleaner, easier CSS anchor positioning. Say so long to needing a JS library to ensure tooltips position themselves so they’re visible - it’s going to be part of the CSS spec pretty soon. Vercel introduces feature flags in Next.js and SvelteKit with Vercel’s Flags SDK. The Flags SDK works with any feature flag provider, and sits between the application and the source of the flags to help devs follow best practices for using feature flags, while keeping websites fast. Feature flags have long been a tool developers need, and can be so complex that entire SaaS companies are focused exclusively on managing them, so it’s interesting to see if Vercel’s foray into feature flag management will pay off in the long run. Reddit has doubled down on blocking search engine crawlers from surfacing new posts and comments in recent weeks, and as of now, Google is the only mainstream search engine that’s made a deal that will allow it to index new search results when users search for posts on Reddit. And finally, all the talks from this year’s React Conf are publicly available on their website. There’s great content about all things React from the likes of Dan Abramov, Evan Bacon, and Kent C. Dodds. Definitely worth checking out.

Links

• Exciting new CSS features coming out of this year’s CSSWG meeting
• Feature flag support from Vercel
• Chrome's no longer removing third-party cookies
• Reddit is now blocking all non-Google search engine crawlers and AI bots
• All the video talks from React Conf 2024 are now available
• Apple Watch SE
• 3D printing (Autodesk Fusion 360)
• 2024 Paris Olympics