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  • If you are using XSLT to make your RSS or atom feeds readable in a browser should somebody click the link you may find this post by Jake Archibald useful: https://jakearchibald.com/2025/making-xml-human-readable-wit... - it provides a JavaScript-based alternative that I believe should work even after Chrome remove this feature.
    by simonw
  • I like XSLT, and I’ve been using the browser-based APIs in my projects, but I must say that XSLT ecosystem has been in a sad state:

    - Browsers have only supported XSLT 1.0, for decades, which is the stone age of templating. XSLT 3.0 is much nicer, but there’s no browser support for it.

    - There are only two cross-platform libraries built for it: libxslt and Saxon. Saxon seriously lacks ergonomics to say the least.

    One option for Google as a trillion dollar company would be to drive an initiative for “better XSLT” and write a Rust-based replacement for libxslt with maybe XSLT 3.0 support, but killing it is more on-brand I guess.

    I also dislike the message “just use this [huge framework everyone uses]”. Browser-based template rendering without loading a framework into the page has been an invaluable boon. It will be missed.

    by sedatk
  • Makes me kind of sad. I started my carrier back in days when XHTML and co were lauded as the next thing. I worked with SOAP and WDSLs. I loved that one can express nearly everything in XML. And namespaces… Then came json and apart from being easier to read for humans I wondered why we switch from this one great exchange format to this half baked one. But maybe I’m just nostalgic. But every time I deal with json parsers for type serialization and the question how to express HashMaps and sets, how to provide type information etc etc I think back to XML and the way that everything was available on board. Looked ugly as hell though :)
    by larusso
  • To anyone who says to use JS instead of XSLT: I block JS because it is also used for ads, tracking and bloat in general. I don't block XSLT because I haven't come across malicious use of XSLT before (though to be fair, I haven't come across much use of XSLT at all).

    I think being able to do client-side templating without JS is an important feature and I hope that since browser vendors are removing XSLT they will add some kind of client-side templating to replace it.

    by MarsIronPI
  • This has been chewed on ad nauseum on HN already, to the point I won't even try to make a list of the articles but just link a search result: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...
    by jerf
  • The "severe security issue" in libxml2 they mention is actually a non-issue and the code in question isn't even used by Chrome. I'm all for switching to memory-safe languages but badmouthing OSS projects is poor style.
    by nwellnhof
  • It's encouraging to see browsers actually deprecate APIs, when I think a lot of problems with the Web and Web security in particular is people start using new technologies too fast but don't stop using old ones fast enough.

    That said, it's also pretty sad. I remember back in the 2000s writing purely XML websites with stylesheets for display, and XML+XSLT is more powerful, more rigorous, and arguably more performant now in the average case than JSON + React + vast amounts of random collated libraries which has become the Web "standard".

    But I guess LLMs aren't great at generating XSLT, so it's unlikely to gain back that market in the near future. It was a good standard (though not without flaws), I hope the people who designed it are still proud of the influence it did have.

    by arandr0x
  • One extremely important XSLT use-case is for RSS/Atom feeds. Right now, clicking on a link to feed brings up a wall of XML (or worse, a download link). If the feed has an XSLT stylesheet, it can be presented in a way that a newcomer can understand and use.

    I realize that not that many feeds are actually doing this, but that's because feed authors are tech-savvy and know what to do with an RSS/Atom link.

    But someone who hasn't seen/used an RSS reader will see a wall of plain-text gibberish (or a prompt to download the wall of gibberish).

    XSLT is currently the only way to make feeds into something that can still be viewed.

    I think RSS/Atom are key technologies for the open web, and discovery is extremely important. Cancelling XSLT is going in the wrong direction (IMHO).

    I've done a bunch of things to try to get people to use XSLT in their feeds: https://www.rss.style/

    You can see it in action on an RSS feed here (served as real XML, not HTML: do view/source): https://www.fileformat.info/news/rss.xml

    by Fileformat

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