The Browser Monopoly
blairreeves.me
The Browser Monopoly
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Re: The Browser Monopoly
#2> Firefox is a fine browser by itself [...] I have the comfort of knowing that my personal information is protected (to the extent possible) – and also that my portal to the web is not custom-built to track me and serve me ads
FF is fantastic, but the uncomfortable question is, will it always be, given Mozilla has to found further development and is financed by Google's money as well? Apple's Safari actually has better standing in terms of alignment of user and developer incentives.
For a sustainable web (what's left of it anyway), it would be more helpful to radically simplify the web such that developers have reasonable and feasible specs to work against, and have diversity in browsers once again. Meanwhile, Google is working hard to lead audiences elsewhere via AMP, a Trojan made possible by JavaScript in the first place.
Re: The Browser Monopoly
#3>Chrome introduced a lot of neat new features (Porn “Incognito Mode,” multithreaded memory changes, tabs and more).
Now chrome is getting credit for in private browsing and tabs? (Safari and Opera respectively. Phoenix/Firefox popularized them long before Chrome was a twinkle.)
>It is mind-boggling that basic tools like these are not yet standard features in browsers.
How long have browsers offered to save passwords? Seems like a lot of bad history in this article.
>The way existing password managers work, the vendor’s liability even if they are hacked is minimal. They don’t hold any passwords!
HUH? Yes they do.. They absolutely hold a copy of your password ... in the cloud.
>Sure, Chromium and the V8 engine are open-source, but they still belong to Google in a way that, say, TCP/IP or IMAP does not.
Im gonna feel really bad breaking the QUIC / HTTP/3 news. Cuz google totally wrote the new transport layer. They wrote the last one too (SPDY HTTP/2.) With this much market share, what google implements and forces the hands of the standards organizations.
>This is why Microsoft’s decision to kill Internet Explorer, once the leading portal to the web, and replace it with a Chromium-based successor says so much about its new direction as a company. I suspect that decision had more to do with clearly understanding Microsoft’s strengths and weaknesses than anything else.
Its primarily for two reasons. 1 is battery life, they want to embed blink into the os so programs dont need to bundle it (electron included.) 2 is because 99% of the web just targets blink now. I dont think you can credit "the move to ssas" alone with Microsoft finally abandoning IE derivatives.
Re: The Browser Monopoly
#4> Firefox is a fine browser by itself [...] I have the comfort of knowing that my personal information is protected (to the extent possible) – and also that my portal to the web is not custom-built to track me and serve me ads FF is fantastic, but the uncomfortable question is, will it always be, given Mozilla has to found further development and is financed by Google's money as well? Apple's Safari actually has bett…
> FF is fantastic, but the uncomfortable question is, will it always be, given Mozilla has to found further development and is financed by Google's money as well? Apple's Safari actually has better standing in terms of alignment of user and developer incentives.
Looks like they've got a plan in place to handle this. I also secretly wish Mozilla would offer up a paid email service that only scans emails to filter our spam. Maybe some incredible Rust based email server.
https://thenextweb.com/apps/2019/06/10/mozilla-will-reported...
Re: The Browser Monopoly
#5I was shocked to see the browser market share graph. Chrome appears to be collapsing on itself, dropping from from an all-time high of 65.4% to 55.4% in just 16 months, effectively losing all share gains since 2016.
But then I looked closer at the data, noticing that only net 120 basis points of the change can be explained by share changes in the other browsers. The rest of the data seems to be missing, as the numbers add up to less than 100%.
What the heck is going on?
Edit: It goes without saying that the article's failure to address this point fundamentally discredits the author. It should be obvious that the first thing an article claiming monopoly would need to do is explain the plummeting market share of the thing that is allegedly a monopoly..
Re: The Browser Monopoly
#6> Firefox is a fine browser by itself [...] I have the comfort of knowing that my personal information is protected (to the extent possible) – and also that my portal to the web is not custom-built to track me and serve me ads FF is fantastic, but the uncomfortable question is, will it always be, given Mozilla has to found further development and is financed by Google's money as well? Apple's Safari actually has bett…
> FF is fantastic, but the uncomfortable question is, will it always be, given Mozilla has to found further development and is financed by Google's money as well? Apple's Safari actually has better standing in terms of alignment of user and developer incentives. Looks like they've got a plan in place to handle this. I also secretly wish Mozilla would offer up a paid email service that only scans emails to filter our…
I have to believe that spam filtering is a solved problem that could be cheaply self-hosted. Is that not true?
Re: The Browser Monopoly
#7> Firefox is a fine browser by itself [...] I have the comfort of knowing that my personal information is protected (to the extent possible) – and also that my portal to the web is not custom-built to track me and serve me ads FF is fantastic, but the uncomfortable question is, will it always be, given Mozilla has to found further development and is financed by Google's money as well? Apple's Safari actually has bett…
>Apple's Safari actually has better standing in terms of alignment of user and developer incentives.
Apple gets credit for being aligned with users and developers?
Out of any of the tech companies, I see Apple the most detached from their users and developers.
Forcing proprietary software, hardware, and accessories is not "for users and developers".
That's Apple's way of generating additional sales and data for Apple.
If they had users and developers as their primary goal, it would be easier to be an Apple customer.
Re: The Browser Monopoly
#8>Chrome introduced a lot of neat new features (Porn “Incognito Mode,” multithreaded memory changes, tabs and more). Now chrome is getting credit for in private browsing and tabs? (Safari and Opera respectively. Phoenix/Firefox popularized them long before Chrome was a twinkle.) >It is mind-boggling that basic tools like these are not yet standard features in browsers. How long have browsers offered to save passwords?…
Regarding tabbed browers: they are ancient. I remember the first time I used tabs with a wrapper for IE 4 or 5 back in the mid-90s. I think it was called NetCaptor or NetRaptor or something. It was magical. Of course, back then, no one knew anything about the privacy implications of something like that.
Re: The Browser Monopoly
#9>Chrome introduced a lot of neat new features (Porn “Incognito Mode,” multithreaded memory changes, tabs and more). Now chrome is getting credit for in private browsing and tabs? (Safari and Opera respectively. Phoenix/Firefox popularized them long before Chrome was a twinkle.) >It is mind-boggling that basic tools like these are not yet standard features in browsers. How long have browsers offered to save passwords?…
Regarding tabbed browers: they are ancient. I remember the first time I used tabs with a wrapper for IE 4 or 5 back in the mid-90s. I think it was called NetCaptor or NetRaptor or something. It was magical. Of course, back then, no one knew anything about the privacy implications of something like that.
Apparently InternetWorks and Netcaptor came before Opera. I shouldnt be so cocky.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-history-of-tabbed-browsing
Re: The Browser Monopoly
#10Interesting i was just thinking about this yesterday. I should ditch chrome. yet here i am typing more shit for google to harvest from me and sell to the highest bidder.