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State of web browsers in 2018

ferdychristant.com

11–20 of 217 posts

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#11
As a Mozilla employee, speaking from my own limited perspective, it seems the company as a whole broadly agrees with this analysis even if it isn't vocalized quite this succinctly. Chrome started out being force-installed alongside Flash, and there is no solution to the bundling problem -- the problem is even larger in scale than the article suggests because of Chromebooks affecting desktop. People who use Firefox in the future will increasingly be people who do so consciously, presumably because they view Mozilla as helping them protect their privacy. Chrome is and will continue to be the default.

Eventually, Google will do something that is an abuse of their monopoly power. Either there will eventually be a privacy/creepiness fiasco, or Google will attempt to use Chrome as leverage to squeeze a competitor out of a market.

When that happens, Mozilla will be well-positioned as an alternative. The path forward in this view would look more like Mozilla as a constellation of disaffected companies and users attempting to free themselves from Google. It won't look like Mozilla on the side doing something by itself. We will largely be defined in opposition to Google.

The article correctly points out that a wiser Microsoft could have gotten a head-start on this inevitability by partnering with us early.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#12
This blog post was tough to read! Seems to have capped out at a 6th grade level.

Re: the topic, the author shows clear bias toward Firefox. It might be better to just acknowledge this: the best browser wins on each platform. Period.

Safari is up there because it runs the best/fastest/with least trouble on iPhones and iPads.

20/20 means PERFECT vision. Above that is ‘abnormally good’.

In other words, the author has a clearly biased view, tries to figure out the obvious, and doesn’t ‘agree’ with definitions for words. Right!

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#13
post #5

If it had been introduced today, would PNaCl have been rejected which ultimately lead to a better solution (WASM), or would it have been broadly accepted since it had sufficient market reach though Chrome?

Ouch, that's an excellent question, and a perfect example of why the state of web browsers is pretty bleak. Likewise, we could wonder what we will see when it comes to AMP.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#14

There is a different way to interpret this: Firefox is irrelevant on mobile, but not on Desktop. Will mobile kill desktop? No, these are two different markets/use-cases/applications. Just like video didn't kill the radio*. Firefox will stay relevant on desktop a.k.a. in work environments.

It's a shame that Firefox is so rarely used on mobile. As far as I'm aware, it's the only mobile browser with extension support. I know that you can use system-wide host-based ad blocking, but I tend to find that uBO does a better job.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#16
post #11

As a Mozilla employee, speaking from my own limited perspective, it seems the company as a whole broadly agrees with this analysis even if it isn't vocalized quite this succinctly. Chrome started out being force-installed alongside Flash, and there is no solution to the bundling problem -- the problem is even larger in scale than the article suggests because of Chromebooks affecting desktop. People who use Firefox in…

I really don't think the general population cares about any of that enough to incite the change you are referring to. People stopped using IE because it was hilariously bad to use compared to Firefox and then Chrome. Until Chrome becomes hilariously worse for an average user to use it'll remain a near monopoly.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#17
post #11

As a Mozilla employee, speaking from my own limited perspective, it seems the company as a whole broadly agrees with this analysis even if it isn't vocalized quite this succinctly. Chrome started out being force-installed alongside Flash, and there is no solution to the bundling problem -- the problem is even larger in scale than the article suggests because of Chromebooks affecting desktop. People who use Firefox in…

You say that Mozilla will be well-positioned as an alternative to Google. That sounds realistic and I hope it will be able to team up with bigger companies which would like to compete with Google (instead of helping it).

However, that made me think about Brave (https://brave.com/). What are your thoughts about it? It's also privacy oriented, but it's actually built on top of Chromium. What is even more interesting, Brave was founded by Brendan Eich (the co-founder of Mozilla).

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#18
Reading this on FireFox mobile, I think it's the best mobile browser out there (I've tried a lot of different browsers).

Sad to see it not gaining market share. That being said, there is a way for it to pick up steam. It would just require a new platform to come a long (probably competing with Google) to use FireFox

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#19
post #2

Amazing read! Very insightful and open at the same time. I've literally highlighted every other sentence in it. Thank you, Ferdy! I basically went through the same thinking process myself. I'm a moderate idealist and would like Firefox to succeed because it's important for the web that there's no monopoly. However, my realist soul tells me that Firefox is losing badly and it's hard to tell where it's going to end. It…

> I'm afraid that it will look like a Cold War's arms race – one of the parties will invest so much that the other will just lose economically (not being able to afford that many developers).

Given all the "Safari is the new IE6" posts that have been here over the past few years, that seems to be already happening.

Apple is lagging behind quite a bit with implementing newer web standards, especially in areas where they have anticompetitive interest in doing so (PWAs cannibalising native apps). Of course, they're the only game in town on iOS, so that ensures them some captive market.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#20
Firefox for mobile is an excellent browser, and the only one I use. It supports extensions, such as uBlock without rooting the phone. The user interface is good, the browser is responsive and reasonably fast. Honestly, I don't know why people aren't using it.

I think most people just don't care, and just use what the system provides. As Google gets more invasive and evil, I hope that people will start to care, and Firefox and other browsers start to flourish again.

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