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The Browser Monopoly

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Re: The Browser Monopoly

#141

Post by olyjohn »

muststopmyths wrote: post #125
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome had the nifty break away title bar tabs before anyone else. But the major improvement that made everyone switch was process separation for each tab. One tab could crash while the others stayed functional and a security vulnerability in one tab would have a more difficult time compromising the others. It's also one of the reasons Chome uses so much memory, they failed to keep optimizing their copy-on-write pagi…

But the major improvement that made everyone switch was process separation for each tab Which IE8 had around the same time (It may have launched after Chrome, but in the contemporaneous betas, they both had the feature) What made people switch was a combination of everything google did having the sheen of "cool" around it, and the fact that I.E development was slow and shoddy.

My perspective on browser history is a little different. I've been following and using Firefox since before it was Firefox. At one point in time, I was working in a computer store. IE6 - 8 was letting ActiveX controls and other scripts run rampant, infecting people like crazy. 99% of our business was malware cleanup and removal due to IE. Once you explained to people what happened, they were appaled and were happy to switch to Firefox, despite many sites only working on IE at the time. THIS is what really triggered the migration away from IE. Firefox was taking off (look at the chart in the linked article), and was starting to dominate, well before Chrome ever became a thing. Those of us on Linux also had Konqueror, and it had a decent userbase as well.

I think that's when Google noticed that the IE monopoly was breaking, and they jumped onboard and took Konqueror's code and then launched their own browser. The same code that Apple used for Safari. So they basically came in on the hard work of Firefox and the KHTML team and took over the market by putting Chrome right on Google's homepage.

It's my opinion that Chrome didn't become popular because it was better, or because it was cool (no average user cares about that). It became popular by being right there on everybody's home page, right at the perfect time that people were catching on to the fact that IE had zero security.

Firefox broke the monopoly and freed us, and then Google and Apple came in and shat all over them.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#142

Post by The_rationalist »

no_wizard wrote: post #128
skrowl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most front-end web devs, iOS Safari is the new IE6.

I never understood this trope. I have not found this to be the case. I think people who weren't around developing for the majority IE days are the ones saying this. It was just so much worse For instance, before Edge adopted Chromium, it didn't have support for the web components/custom elements specification. Safari was one of the first browsers to have it properly (I think even before FireFox) beside Chrome (which…

It's not difficult to understand it, just watch browser scores on can I use https://caniuse.com/

Yes Safari is far better than IE but we're in 2019, it's the new browser limiting the web, thus it's the new IE.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#143

Post by cpeterso »

supuun wrote: post #75
linza wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I use Firefox+adblocker on mobile for some sites. I don't know why it is, but i just dislike the UI of Firefox. I want to like it more, but it just doesn't work out...

Yeah, Firefox on mobile sucks, but they are fortunately working on a major update. Firefox on the desktop rocks tho.

You can test drive the new "Firefox Preview" on Android here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fe...

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#144

Post by olyjohn »

dao- wrote: post #126
pmikesell wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a technically minded person. I've been using web browsers since NCSA Mosaic. I switch browsers probably once per decade (mosaic -> netscape navigator -> firefox -> chrome). At the time I started using Chrome IE was the dominant web browser and firefox was losing the war because content creators were continually accidentally making things work in IE only. (By "accidentally" I mean that the standards were very conf…

> At the time I started using Chrome IE was the dominant web browser and firefox was losing the war [...] This is false. Firefox's market share was continuously rising until Chrome came along (and Google marketed it aggressively). IE was still strong but already losing.

You are correct. For some reason, I keep seeing this history repeated over and over, but even the chart in the article confirms you're correct. Firefox was taking over like crazy before Chrome came along...

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#145

Post by psychrometer »

basch wrote: post #19
guardian5x wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_browsing Safari came first, but Chrome was before Opera or Firefox.

I credited it to Safari

But you also said that Opera and Firefox had private browsing before Chrome which is not true.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#146

Post by robertoandred »

__dawid__ wrote: post #79
darklion wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I ended up switching to Safari, to discover that it's just not quite as good an experience as Firefox or Chrome. IMO, I find it to be just the opposite--neither Firefox nor Chrome are as good an experience as Safari. Maybe the difference is that when a particular site does not work in a given browser, I don't blame the browser, I blame the website.

Safari seems to lag a lot in features. In compatibility it's a modern IE

Hardly. It took how long for Chrome and FF to support position sticky, or backdrop filter?

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#147

Post by cameronbrown »

The_rationalist wrote: post #107
cameronbrown wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it is nothing in comparison of safari which is pathetically behind blink and gecko feature wise. It's a shame that the most popular websites don't team up to block safari and ask to install a browser that supports web standards. YouTube did this with a version of IE and weeks after they were followed by thousands of websites not supporting this antic version. What about iOS? There's no alternative.

There's no alternative until there's one. If the web stopped working on Apple devices do you imagine the public reaction? Apple would be humiliated and would instantly indeed allow to install other browsers. But we don't need to go so fast. Firstly the web should block desktop safari, then laptop safaris. We wait that Apple fixe it's OS. Then we do the same on IOS waiting for the same "fixe" Instead of making apple b…

More likely: News publishers would see their ad revenue tank as iOS users tend to have more money/more valuable audience, consumers would get extremely annoyed at having their device gimped for no reason ('it worked yesterday') and are further driven into the app ecosystem, which helps Apple and harms the open web.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#148

Post by cameronbrown »

aqzman wrote: post #109
cameronbrown wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainly Google extensions (yeah, not coming anytime soon): Keep and Chrome Remote Desktop are two of my favourite services.

I only used Chrome Remote Desktop for the first time two weeks ago. I was blown away how easy it was the setup and how well it worked.

Side-point: Steam In-Home Streaming is great for this as well. You're able to jump into a regular desktop and the protocol is highly optimised.

This is the best alternative I've found when using Firefox instead of Chrome.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#149

Post by ahartmetz »

olyjohn wrote: post #141
muststopmyths wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the major improvement that made everyone switch was process separation for each tab Which IE8 had around the same time (It may have launched after Chrome, but in the contemporaneous betas, they both had the feature) What made people switch was a combination of everything google did having the sheen of "cool" around it, and the fact that I.E development was slow and shoddy.

My perspective on browser history is a little different. I've been following and using Firefox since before it was Firefox. At one point in time, I was working in a computer store. IE6 - 8 was letting ActiveX controls and other scripts run rampant, infecting people like crazy. 99% of our business was malware cleanup and removal due to IE. Once you explained to people what happened, they were appaled and were happy to…

Blink forked off from WebKit long after WebKit forked off from KHTML. Maybe you wanted to say that, but it reads more like Blink (Chrome engine) forked directly from KHTML.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#150

Post by ozten »

Why Chrome exists is missing a key driver - A significant portion of Google's search traffic came from business deals where they paid browser vendors (or others) to be the default search option. As they cannibalized the browser market they eliminated this cost or gained significant negotiating power.

"Driving innovation on the web" is the don't be evil slogan that motivates us all to allow them to "vertically integrate advertising and cut costs".

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