Announcing Interop 2026, Interop 2025 review, Web Almanac 2025, State of the Industry surveys, and more | Front End News #114

Announcing Interop 2026, Interop 2025 review, Web Almanac 2025, State of the Industry surveys, and more

— Front End News #114 | 21 May 2026 —

In this issue, we take a look at the plans for Interop 2026 and reflect on the accomplishments of Interop 2025. The Web Almanac provides an analysis of the current state of the web, while the "State of..." suite of surveys takes the pulse of various developer communities.

The Web Platform has made many advances since the last issue, and we take a look at the most important ones, along with the latest releases from the main browsers. The Release Radar highlights only major releases. And there is a huge list of great resources for your convenience.

Announcing Interop 2026

Interop is, without a doubt, the most important initiative of the web industry. It has been running in its current format since 2021 and has helped tremendously advance the web platform.

The 2026 edition is picking up where the 2025 edition left off. Anchor positioning, container-style queries, scroll-driven animations, or view transitions are among the focus areas for this year.

Looking back at Interop 2025

Interop 2025 focused on 19 areas in total. At the end of the year, the scoreboard showed 95 across the board for the stable versions and 97 for the experimental ones.

The 2025 Web Almanac

The Web Almanac is one of the most comprehensive analyses of the World Wide Web. The 2025 edition was compiled from over 16 million websites and 244TB of data. It covers four main sections:

The CSS Selection

Project Wallace is dedicated to providing insight into CSS within other projects over longer periods. By accessing the code of many websites, they compiled an overview of how CSS is currently used in the field.

The CSS Selection is meant to compensate for the lack of a CSS chapter in the recent editions of the Web Almanac. The report includes data points such as the size of CSS code, the use of @-rules, the size and complexity of rule sets, and more.

State of the Industry

Sacha Greif and the Devographics surveys have been a staple of the industry over the last few years. What started back in 2016 as an attempt to get the next framework to work with has evolved into a vital insight into the various aspects of the web industry.

State of AI

The results for the State of AI survey arrived just as I was preparing this issue for publication, and I couldn't just skip it. Over 7000 developers provided their input, and the things are both great and bad. Use of AI grew tremendously over the last year. Layoffs happen everywhere. Developers turn into AI supervisors. And the overall quality of apps and websites has decreased, despite the greater amount of code generated.

State of Devs

The State of Devs survey is a foray into developers' lives. Over 8700 people participated and offered insights on their people actually writing code. Most of them (44%) are between 30 and 39 years old. More than half (52%) are affected by some impairment, illness, or medical condition, while poor sleep, weight issues, and mental health are the top three issues encountered. Video games, movies/TV, and reading are the main hobbies, while Japan is the place most people (21%) would like to move to for a few years.

State of CSS

CSS has been one of the fastest-growing fields in the industry over the last few years. The Interop initiative has helped the adoption of new features. It allowed developers to use CSS for tasks that were usually reserved for JavaScript. :has(), subgrid, and aspect-ratio are the most used and loved features. Safari is still viewed by some as "the new IE", but their team is working hard to fix this. And more developers use Baseline as a reference for adopting new features.

State of HTML

The State of HTML survey is more about the entire Web Platform and the advancements in multiple directions: accessibility, APIs, and support for new formats. Developers still care more about things that make their work easier: SVG support, popovers and dialogs, lazy loading, and customizable selects. These are the features they expect browser vendors to implement as a priority.

State of React

State of React takes a peek at the most used JavaScript framework. Despite version 19 being available since December 2024, only about 50% of developers have made the change. The community is neutral or optimistic about the React Foundation. Last, but not least, AI and vibe-coding made the framework more popular than ever.

State of JavaScript

State of JavaScript aims to take the pulse of the entire ecosystem. Here is not just about frameworks, but about the Web Platform itself, about extending the language and bringing native support in browsers. TypeScript gains even more ground, with 40% of respondents writing TS code exclusively.

💻 Browser News

Web Platform Updates

Time and tide wait for no one, and neither does the Web Platform itself. Here is a brief outline of what has happened since our last issue.

It is not enough for new features to enter Baseline. It helps to have examples of what you can do with these features. Here is where the "Baseline in action" series of articles from the Chrome dev team comes to help:

Speaking of Baseline, we must mention the monthly digests. They are a great way to stay up to date, not only with newly supported features but also with those that have become widely supported and are thus safe for use in most scenarios.

Another long-running series is the "New to the Web Platform in..." set of articles, highlighting browser releases and the new features that became available in stable or beta builds.

I must make a special mention of the CSS Wrapped 2025 article, where the Chrome dev team put together both an interesting page and a demo of the most important new features released in 2025.

Chrome

The main features of Chrome 136 are better security for :visited links and the option to upgrade saved credentials to passkeys, along with DevTools improvements to the Performance panel.

Chrome 137 brought better logical tab order in complex layouts via reading-flow and reading-order, and support for CSS conditionals via the if() function. DevTools updates focused on integration with Gemini.

Chrome 138 integrates new AI APIs for translation, language detection, and summarization, as well as the Viewport Segments API for targeting foldable devices. DevTools feature improvements for most panels.

Chrome 139 brings on-device speech recognition via the Web Speech API and support for CSS corner shaping and custom functions. DevTools updates focus on addressing known issues and further integrating with AI tools.

Chrome 140 introduces native support for the source that triggered a ToggleEvent, better control of alt text of the content property, and improved customization of variable fonts directly in the @font-face rule. DevTools bring (as you might have guessed) even more integration with AI, and the option to see Baseline status in a CSS property tooltip.

Chrome 141 improves IndexedDB performance for getAllRecords(), and provides direction for getAll() and getAllKeys(). WebRTC Encoded Transform (V2) now matches the Interop specs, while nested SVG elements support width and height attributes. DevTools integrates even more AI, while the Elements > Layout tab adds support for masonry layouts.

Chrome 142 brings support for the :target-before and :target-after CSS pseudo-classes, and range syntax for CSS style container queries and the if() CSS function. DevTools brings more AI features and direct integration with the Google Developer Program.

Chrome 143 adds support for CSS anchored fallback container queries, side-relative values for background-image longhand position properties, and the font-language-override CSS property, allowing override of the system language used for OpenType glyph substitution. DevTools feature updates for the MCP server, improved performance trace sharing, support for the CSS @starting-style rule, an editor widget for masonry, and integration of Lighthouse 13.

Chrome 144 adds support for the new ::search-text pseudo-element, enabling "find-in-page" search result styling. The <geolocation> element is a new control for accessing the user's location. The Temporal API offers a new way to work with dates and times. The DevTools feature, you guessed it, mostly has more AI integration.

Chrome 145 allows column wrapping for multicol layouts, working with origins is easier due to the new Origin object, part of the Origin API. User sessions can now be bound to their specific device, making it harder to use stolen session cookies on other machines. DevTools bring updates to the MCP server, faster trace interaction, the identification of render-blocking resources, and more.

Chrome 146 brings support for scroll-driven animations, scoped custom element registry, and the Sanitizer API. DevTools now supports dense grids, improved privacy debugging, accessibility improvements, and more.

Chrome 147 implements element-scoped view transitions, the CSS contrast-color() function, and the border-shape property. DevTools brings new features for AI agents, code suggestions and generation, regular expressions for filters, and more.

Chrome 148 implements CSS name-only container queries, lazy loading for audio and video elements, and the Prompt API. DevTools brings more features for AI Agents, a full accessibility tree, and more.

Firefox

Firefox 138 brings profile management, global tab groups, and a better experience with address and card auto-fill.

Firefox 139 brings full-page translations for extension pages, the Temporal API is enabled by default, and you can search inside closed <details> elements.

Firefox 140 adds even more search engines, reduces memory usage by unloading unused tabs, prioritizes full-page translations based on viewport content, and adds support for the Custom Highlight and Cookie Store APIs.

Firefox 141 brings the option to convert units directly in the address bar, enabling the WebGPU API on Windows.

Firefox 142 begins gradual rollout of link previews, while developers can use the wllama API to integrate local LLM capabilities for extensions.

Firefox 143 adds the option to use Microsoft Copilot as a chatbot in the sidebar, and you can decide whether files downloaded in Private Browsing mode are deleted at the end of the session or remain on the device.

Firefox 144 brings better profile management, and the Firefox Password Manager replaces the older 3DES-CBC encryption with the modern AES-256-CBC scheme. Search with Google Lens is now an option for any image, while the desktop version includes Perplexity, an AI-powered answer engine.

Firefox 145 adds the option to add, edit, and delete comments in PDF files; you can manage passwords directly in the sidebar; 32-bit Linux systems are no longer supported; and includes Matroska support for the most common codecs.

Firefox 146 makes Firefox Labs available for all desktop users. Unused CSS custom properties are hidden in the Inspector. The new @scope rule allows developers to restrict styling to a subtree of the DOM. And the CSS contrast-color() function makes it easier to maintain a good color contrast.

Firefox 147 supports the Safe Browsing v5 protocol, you can inspect and view transition pseudo-elements in the Inspector, and you can add or edit pseudo-elements directly in the CSS rules panel.

Firefox 148 adds a new section for the AI controls in the Settings area and implements support for the CSS shape() functions. Service workers now support WebGPU, and HTML manipulation is safer thanks to the Sanitizer API.

Firefox 149 lets you view two tabs side by side with the new Split View feature. There is a new built-in VPN and PDF file handling with the benefits of hardware acceleration. Privacy and security settings are grouped in the new TrustPanel. Under the hood, there is support for the popover="hint" HTML attribute, media element pseudo-classes such as :playing and :paused, and the new Reporting API.

Firefox 150 improves the Split View feature and adds a fully featured free PDF editor. Developers can use light-dark() on images, and the color-mix() function supports an arbitrary number of colors.

Polypane

Polypane 25 runs on top of Chromium 138, supports Manifest v3 extensions, offers improved form handling (including a free online HTML form inspector), and more.

Polypane 26 adds better device emulation, including support for safe areas and small viewports. You can have multiple measuring overlays at the same time. And everything runs on top of Chromium 140.

Polypane 27 runs on Chromium 142 and brings a long-awaited project-based workflow. The Live CSS panel has been replaced by the new Snippets panel, which lets you save, edit, and manage CSS and JS snippets for reuse whenever you want.

Polypane 28 runs on Chromium 146 and brings project environments - no more working on prod by mistake. The Elements panel is faster than ever, and there are further improvements to the entire interface.

Polypane 29 runs on Chromium 148 and features a new UI for the panels. There is a Snippets Store for ready-made snippets, although it's more of a repo than a marketplace. There is also a new Network panel, and you can inspect iframes and visualize grid and flex layouts with the Peek functionality.

WebKit

Safari 18.5 is more of a follow-up to the previous release. It brings Declarative Web Push to macOS, along with many fixes and enhancements.

Safari 18.6 follows the same path, primarily a vector for deploying four bug fixes.

Safari 26 represents a major shift in the evolution of this web browser. Apple decided to match the version number with the year (2025 - 2026). It brings a new design language - Liquid Glass, 75 new features, and over 170 other improvements. Some of the new features include CSS Anchor Positioning, HDR images, the Digital Credentials API, WebGPU, and more.

Safari 26.1 introduced support for relative units in SVG, improvements to CSS Anchor Positioning, and many fixes and enhancements.

Safari 26.2 is another large release. It includes over 60 new features, such as button commands, auto-growing text fields (with CSS field-sizing), and improvements to anchor positioning and text decoration. APIs get a lot of love, too, like the new Navigation API. The Performance and Web Animations APIs continue to receive improvements. And the list goes on.

Safari 26.3 is low-key "tok" to the richly featured "tik" 26.2. This release brings mostly bug fixes and improvements to existing elements.

Safari 26.4 brings another large set of new features and a huge list of nearly 200 fixes for existing issues. I am most excited to see the first implementation of the newly adopted CSS Grid Lanes mode - the native CSS version of the popular Masonry layout.

Safari 26.5 is another "tok" release. There is new support for the :open pseudo-class, SVG gradients work now with color-interpolation, and the Origin API is now functional. However, this release is mostly a vehicle for fine-tuning existing features and fixing existing issues.

Wolvic

Wolvic aimed to establish a baseline for an open-source browser in the XR space. However, the landscape has changed over the last year. The Gecko engine has fallen behind in terms of support. Google announced its own initiative with Android XR. All this forced Igalia to move the Wolvic project into maintenance mode, including security updates and some minor maintenance work.

📡 The Release Radar

Given how long it has been since the previous edition, it would be overwhelming to take the usual approach and mention every interesting update. Therefore, here are only major releases (increments of the main version number).

🛠️ Front End Resources

GSAP is now 100% FREE

One of the most popular libraries for animations on the web became free, including for commercial use.

Other resources

There's more where that came from. Explore the rest of the Front End Resource collection.

Wrapping things up

Ukraine is still suffering from the Russian invasion. To find ways to help, please read Smashing Magazine's article We All Are Ukraine 🇺🇦 or contact your trusted charity.

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That's all I have for this issue. Have a great and productive week, keep yourselves safe, and spend as much time as possible with your loved ones. I will see you again next time!

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