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Re: Browsers

#181

Post by holtalanm »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #178
Santosh83 wrote: post #64

There are several comments on this post wondering why a browser monoculture is bad or speculating that a browser engine monopoly is inevitable and ought to be accepted. Let's just replace 'browser' with OS (ironically the similarities are becoming more with each passing day) above... would we still say the same? Is an OS monoculture good, regardless of whether it is inevitable? Have we forgotten the power that MS had…

> Let's just replace 'browser' with OS (ironically the similarities are becoming more with each passing day) above... would we still say the same? From what I've seen, yes absolutely, as long as it is Linux.

precisely. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement as well. The differentiator? Linux, like Chromium, is open-source. I would welcome an OS monoculture with every OS being based upon a linux kernel.

Re: Browsers

#182

Post by kipkniskern »

JoshuaJB wrote: post #124
sonnyblarney wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern is not 'now' it's 'later'. Google is a business like any other - and when they have the power to lever a monopolized situation - they will. For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's? Or what if they integrate technology that de-facto collects usa…

"For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's?" This is already happening. I very recently worked on the Edge team, and one of the reasons we decided to end EdgeHTML was because Google kept making changes to its sites that broke other browsers, and we couldn't…

These are, however, changes to Chrome and not Chromium, right? Even with a move to Chromium, anyone/everyone is still going to be playing catch up to Google. Having an open source engine means next to nothing if Google plays these kinds of games, abusing its dominant position. Having Edge updates tied to OS updates seems to be more of a problem than EdgeHTML itself, unless there are other issues (and there probably are) in play.

Re: Browsers

#183

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

holtalanm wrote: post #181
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's just replace 'browser' with OS (ironically the similarities are becoming more with each passing day) above... would we still say the same? From what I've seen, yes absolutely, as long as it is Linux.

precisely. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement as well. The differentiator? Linux, like Chromium, is open-source. I would welcome an OS monoculture with every OS being based upon a linux kernel.

Just so we're clear, I definitely do not agree with this sentiment.

Re: Browsers

#184

Post by eganist »

XCabbage wrote: post #162
JoshuaJB wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's?" This is already happening. I very recently worked on the Edge team, and one of the reasons we decided to end EdgeHTML was because Google kept making changes to its sites that broke other browsers, and we couldn't…

The behaviour that your co-workers claim Google engaged in sounds pretty exactly like the AMD-Intel antitrust case where AMD alleged that Intel's C compiler was deliberately crippling performance on AMD processors to help Intel's processors compete. If true, Microsoft should sue Google over it - not just out of raw corporate self-interest, but because this sort of conduct is evil and should be stamped out. If this ca…

Fascinating. I wonder what the counter-argument would be; that a website isn't software, perhaps? That argument could be sufficiently argued apart by equating manually downloaded/installed software with code that's manually downloaded (GET / host: youtube.com) and run in a browser context.

I'd be curious to see how likely Microsoft would be to follow this approach rather than to just stick to using Blink... as they've already decided to do.

Re: Browsers

#185

Post by kup0 »

Klonoar wrote: post #102
vSanjo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, by all means, but I recently read somewhere that Firefox is genuinely trying to improve it's MacOS performance in one of the new releases. No sources, it was just in passing somewhere, but I distinctly remember it.

This has been said about a litany of releases, and they don't really ever make a dent.

I cannot remember the number at this point, but there was one specific release recently that did seem to make a significant improvement for me on MacOS.

I used to have heavy pages hang here and there and really burn some CPU (Facebook, etc) and sometimes even freeze without loading completely. Now on the same machine, the latest Firefox works just fine and avoids those states completely.

It's still a long way from perfect, but I once thought Firefox unusable on MacOS and went back to Chrome, but now that I've tried the latest FF releases, I'm happy enough with the performance that I'm staying with FF this time around

The only remaining sites with poor performance are Google products, and I blame Google for that and am trying to slowly remove myself from all of their products.

Re: Browsers

#186

Post by bobajeff »

newscracker wrote: post #61
eddieroger wrote: post #45

I feel like I’m missing something, because I keep seeing blog posts that tell me a browser monoculture is bad (and the irony of Microsoft saying this is nearly too much), but none of them tell me why. I understand that it was bad in the IE6 days, but IE6 was also closed source and could only be run on Windows (see also the irony of Microsoft discontinuing IE on Mac, not wanting to compete with Safari, a browser made…

Please read this different take and explanation in this article linked within the main article, titled "The ecological impact of browser diversity", by Rachel Nabors. [1] [1]: https://css-tricks.com/the-ecological-impact-of-browser-dive...

The problem with his analogy is that it make the difference between browsers out to be the difference between a bird and a squirrel when at best it's more like the difference between a falcon and a eagle.

If we really want diversity on the internet we should probably still be using Gopher and other internet clients.

Re: Browsers

#187

Post by oehpr »

holtalanm wrote: post #181
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's just replace 'browser' with OS (ironically the similarities are becoming more with each passing day) above... would we still say the same? From what I've seen, yes absolutely, as long as it is Linux.

precisely. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement as well. The differentiator? Linux, like Chromium, is open-source. I would welcome an OS monoculture with every OS being based upon a linux kernel.

I don't think I understand the desire that something be open source.

I feel like, if I wanted to, I could contribute to the linux kernel. All that I would need to do is submit pull requests, have it vetted, and gain reputation within that community.

Could you say that about any arbitrary pull request for chromium? Even if it was against googles interests to merge it?

Is your contention that I just fork it and compete with chromium with my PR integrated?

I don't view these projects as equivalent at all.

Re: Browsers

#188

Post by rst »

JoshuaJB wrote: post #124
sonnyblarney wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern is not 'now' it's 'later'. Google is a business like any other - and when they have the power to lever a monopolized situation - they will. For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's? Or what if they integrate technology that de-facto collects usa…

"For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's?" This is already happening. I very recently worked on the Edge team, and one of the reasons we decided to end EdgeHTML was because Google kept making changes to its sites that broke other browsers, and we couldn't…

Another example: on Android, look up scores of an ongoing sports event on mobile Chrome, and mobile Firefox. Mobile chrome gets you a box saying what the score actually is; mobile firefox just shows you the links to sports-league and news sites that you see under the score in mobile Chrome.

Click the "show desktop view" page on mobile firefox, reload, and suddenly the score is there. They're not discriminating that aggressively against competing desktop browsers. Yet.

Re: Browsers

#189

Post by bobajeff »

gsnedders wrote: post #161
admax88q wrote: post #49

The web browser vendors have too much money. They have no incentive to keep the platform small. Google in particular, the cost to implement Blink is essentially meaningless to them, but it is beyond affordability for almost anyone else.

What's the total money passing through the web? Billions, trillions? The amount of money that is spent on browsers is such a tiny fraction of web-derived profit it is, in my opinion, surprising that browser vendors don't have more money.

Well they do give away browsers for free.

Re: Browsers

#190

Post by proaralyst »

pritambaral wrote: post #148
quanticle wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's? They've already started. Google Meet (their version of Hangouts for enterprise) didn't work on non-Chrome browsers for a very long time. If you tried to do a video call with a non-Chrome browser, you were told to in…

> Currently, all of Google's services work on non-Chrome browsers. Google Earth is Chrome-only, because they use the Chrome-only NativeClient. Google Hangouts dropped calling support on non-Chrome browsers for quite a while: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15889018 YouTube (and perhaps GMail) is extra slow on non-Chrome browsers because they use a dropped-and-never-standardised feature that is available only on…

They use a polyfill for Firefox on Youtube because of a never-standardised feature too: https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/1021649116391075840
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