Technology1 min read

Death Comes for XSLT

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

Google and other major browser makers are coordinating to eliminate XSLT functionality, setting the deprecation date for November 17, 2026. In the meantime, some Chromium-based browsers have started injecting alert banners into websites built with the technology to warn visitors about upcoming rendering failures. Once support is fully dropped, affected pages will fail to display properly unless visitors install dedicated extensions or administrators update the underlying infrastructure. Critics argue this aggressive deprecation strategy violates core web stewardship standards and needlessly disrupts the existing digital ecosystem.

Key points

  • The coordinated deprecation represents a significant departure from the web's longstandin…: The coordinated deprecation represents a significant departure from the web's longstanding commitment to backwards compatibility.
  • Developers and critics strongly oppose the phaseout because it will deliberately break fu…: Developers and critics strongly oppose the phaseout because it will deliberately break functional legacy websites across the internet.
  • Browser makers are shifting the responsibility and burden of site rendering onto everyday…: Browser makers are shifting the responsibility and burden of site rendering onto everyday users and legacy website maintainers.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

Last halloween, Google decided to kill XSLT. That was not a unilateral decision mind you, Google said “jump” and other browser vendors said “how high?”

In response, I published my Intent to Deprecate and Remove Google Chrome. A performative declaration of course, I don’t install spyware.

Fearing my parody lacked seriousness, I created XSLT.RIP to ensure the developer world was informed of Google’s death note. This did the trick, although a few commenters believed it was satire. There is subtlety to XSLT.RIP. The website itself is built with XSLT and when Google kills XSLT they’ll kill my website.

The web standards process and its stewards (Big Browser) used to adhere to a social contract. Backwards compatibility was a major design principle. Under no circumstances do you ever purposefully break the web.

Google decided to renege and break the web.

XSLT.RIP will be broken soon and I’ll sit back and watch Google break it. 17 November 2026 appears to be the date of execution. Some Chromium-based browsers have been running a man-in-the-middle attack by injecting propaganda into XSLT websites.

This site…

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