In some way the browsers already have made the decision. The new JSON.parse method available in Firefox, Safari, and IE 8 is capable of parsing a valid JSON string and turning it into a JavaScript object. The exception is the one provided by Chrome, as it accepts malformed JSON strings (such as {foo:1} and {'foo':1}).<p>In jQuery we wanted to take advantage of this new JSON.parse method for speed and security - but we couldn't have it throwing malformed JSON exceptions in some browsers but not others, so we simply equalized the field (throwing an exception in all browsers).