Launching Interop 2026

2026-02-15 · Source: Simon Willison's Weblog · Field: Technology & Digital — Software Development & Engineering, Emerging Technologies & Innovation · Depth: Intermediate, quick

Summary

Interop 2026 has been launched, continuing a collaborative initiative among Apple, Google, Igalia, Microsoft, and Mozilla to achieve cross-browser parity for specific web platform features. This program, which began as Compat 2021 and rebranded to Interop in 2022, has demonstrated significant effectiveness through annual dashboards tracking browser compatibility scores. For instance, the 2025 progress chart shows Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari all converging near 95-100% compatibility by year-end, with the overall Interop line reaching approximately 95%. Key features targeted for 2026 include Cross-document View Transitions, which will enable SPA-style page transitions without JavaScript, and JavaScript Promise Integration for WebAssembly, simplifying asynchronous operations for languages like C/C++.

Key takeaway

For web developers and product managers planning new site features, Interop 2026 signals upcoming stability and broad support for advanced capabilities. You should prioritize integrating Cross-document View Transitions for enhanced user experience and investigate JavaScript Promise Integration for WebAssembly to streamline complex asynchronous logic in your applications, ensuring wider compatibility and reduced development friction.

Key insights

Cross-browser collaboration significantly improves web platform feature consistency and adoption.

Principles

• Standardized web features drive platform evolution.
• Visual dashboards foster competitive improvement.

Method

Major browser vendors collaborate annually on a targeted set of web features, tracking progress via public dashboards to achieve cross-browser parity.

In practice

• Utilize Cross-document View Transitions for seamless page navigation.
• Explore WebAssembly Promise Integration for simplified async C/C++.

Topics

• Web Interoperability
• Cross-Browser Compatibility
• WebAssembly
• View Transitions API
• Web Standards

Code references

• WebAssembly/js-promise-integration

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Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by Simon Willison's Weblog.