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Chrome Won

andreasgal.com

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Re: Chrome Won

#231

Post by nocman »

flerchin wrote: post #18
aerovistae wrote: post #4

> I started Firefox OS in 2011 because already back then I was convinced that desktops and browsers were dead. Not immediately–here we are 6 years later and both are still around–but both are legacy technologies that are not particularly influential going forward. I don't understand this perspective. Browsers are legacy technologies that are not particularly influential? What? I feel like the web dominates our lives…

Most people do their banking from their phones.

Got any hard data on that (seriously, I'd like to know)?

I don't know anyone who does banking on their phone -- it's all desktop. Granted, I haven't taken a formal survey or anything.

Re: Chrome Won

#233

Post by coldtea »

gkoberger wrote: post #51

I agree with this blog post. But I don't think Mozilla lost. I worked for Mozilla for a few years, after seeing John Lily (CEO at the time) speak. It was right after Chrome started getting popular, and a smug person in the crowd asked him about how he felt about Chrome. John's response was awesome. "This is the web that we wanted. We exist not because we want everyone to use Firefox, but because we wanted people to h…

>Now, we have options. Chrome is great, but so are Safari, Edge, Brave, Opera and Firefox. There's a lot of options out there, and they're all standards compliment. And that's thanks to Mozilla.

I think the idea of TFA is that soon we wont have as many options, since Chrome seems to be dominating. Opera is also using Chrome's engine, ditto for Brave, so they're basically just sells. And Safari is from the same DNA, and only really relevant on Mobile and OS X.

So Windows users basically have just Chrome and Firefox, and Linux users basically have just Chrome, Firefox and Edge. And even in Windows, Chrome dominates, almost to the point that IE dominated back in the day.

So where's the choice? If it's just about availability of other rendering engines, people still had choice in the "optimized for IE" days. But it's mostly about rendering engines having competing market shares, and nowadays they increasingly do not.

Plus, who will keep paying search placement money to Firefox if it gets to small single digits of use? And without those, how will development be continued?

Re: Chrome Won

#234

Post by [deleted] »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #88
MBCook wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we're moving extremely fast to a chrome only world. If it wasn't for corporate sites and the success of the iPhone chrome would probably be dominating the way IE used to. I definitely run into sites that only work on chrome and not in any other browser. In my opinion chrome isn't doing a good job either. It's a massive energy hog and waste more CPU than it needs to. Unlike IE and FireFox and Safari it…

"The problem is we're moving extremely fast to a chrome only world. If it wasn't for corporate sites and the success of the iPhone chrome would probably be dominating the way IE used to." "Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again." -- Gandalf

[deleted]

Re: Chrome Won

#235

Post by coldtea »

ehsankia wrote: post #93
andrepd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We cannot possibly be talking about the same Google. This is the Google of AMP et al. You think they won't do the exact same thing Microsoft did with IE when they find themselves in a similar dominant/monopolistic position in the market? You're sorely mistaken. We already find many examples of websites and Web apps that work only on chrome or the chrome "web store". This not to mention the surveillance and privacy nu…

The only sites I've seen that only work on Chrome are generally due to the developers being lazy and only targeting the top platform. It's similar to many games only being available on iOS a few years ago, or many programs only being available on Windows. Now with the web, it's much easier to make something work across all platforms, except at the bleeding edge, which is generally where you'll find those sites. Almos…

>The only sites I've seen that only work on Chrome are generally due to the developers being lazy and only targeting the top platform.

That was the case with sites only working on IE 6. What did you expect?

And after some market share point, it's not about laziness either, it makes business sense to not waste time for a small percentage of users (100% reach is not always better than 90% reach -- there's this thing called "opportunity cost").

This is what we want to avoid.

Re: Chrome Won

#236

Post by staticelf »

The issue I have with Mozilla is that they seem too technical focused. They do stuff like Rust which must be an incredible investment of time.

If you're going to make a new browser engine from scratch, why not use a language that already exist? I understand there's reasons but stuff like that is just wtf imho.

Also, they've done stuff like Firefox Hello, that login thing etc. Many were good ideas but they should really focus on their core product and making it solid as a fucking rock. I still feel that Chromes developer tools are better, that Chrome is snappier and doesn't crash as often etc. etc.

I use Chrome at my work computer but Firefox at home because Chrome developer tools is still better when it comes to stuff like debugging, viewing json and profiling.

I mean why is that not more awesome in Firefox?

Re: Chrome Won

#237

Post by coldtea »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #66
gkoberger wrote: post #51

I agree with this blog post. But I don't think Mozilla lost. I worked for Mozilla for a few years, after seeing John Lily (CEO at the time) speak. It was right after Chrome started getting popular, and a smug person in the crowd asked him about how he felt about Chrome. John's response was awesome. "This is the web that we wanted. We exist not because we want everyone to use Firefox, but because we wanted people to h…

Agreed that Mozilla's original mission has been accomplished in spades, but I wouldn't count Mozilla out of the browser race just yet. Servo and Webrender[0] will completely shake up the browser landscape, and will allow web apps to match (maybe even surpass?) native mobile apps in terms of rendering performance. Unless Chrome, IE, and Safari can develop an answer to Servo and Webrender by the time those technologies…

>Servo and Webrender[0] will completely shake up the browser landscape, and will allow web apps to match (maybe even surpass?) native mobile apps in terms of rendering performance.

Unless Firefox (and Servo) gets it GUI to not feel alien and clunky, it wont matter if it has a faster rendering engine. Rendering engines are plenty fast as it is anyway, it's CPU use and battery impact that matters to users. And when performance does matter, it's mostly Javascript performance, which Servo doesn't address.

It also wont matter for mobile, since Android will still keep Chrome browser, and iOS will still keep Mobile Safari -- they're both made by the platform's creators.

Re: Chrome Won

#238

Post by flukus »

coldtea wrote: post #235
ehsankia wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only sites I've seen that only work on Chrome are generally due to the developers being lazy and only targeting the top platform. It's similar to many games only being available on iOS a few years ago, or many programs only being available on Windows. Now with the web, it's much easier to make something work across all platforms, except at the bleeding edge, which is generally where you'll find those sites. Almos…

> The only sites I've seen that only work on Chrome are generally due to the developers being lazy and only targeting the top platform. That was the case with sites only working on IE 6. What did you expect? And after some market share point, it's not about laziness either, it makes business sense to not waste time for a small percentage of users (100% reach is not always better than 90% reach -- there's this thing c…

> And after some market share point, it's not about laziness either, it makes business sense to not waste time for a small percentage of users (100% reach is not always better than 90% reach -- there's this thing called "opportunity cost").

A lot of companies that thought short term like that our paying through the nose for the decision now because they are still stuck on IE6. There is a business case for avoiding vendor lock in, but it's not quantifiable so it gets ignored.

Re: Chrome Won

#239

Post by floatboth »

candiodari wrote: post #170
gkoberger wrote: post #51

I agree with this blog post. But I don't think Mozilla lost. I worked for Mozilla for a few years, after seeing John Lily (CEO at the time) speak. It was right after Chrome started getting popular, and a smug person in the crowd asked him about how he felt about Chrome. John's response was awesome. "This is the web that we wanted. We exist not because we want everyone to use Firefox, but because we wanted people to h…

Firefox is the only android browser with ad-blocking plugins enabled. That makes it the only usable browser on mobile. Sucks that they don't have an IOS version, but Apple is the problem there, not Mozilla.

Uh, Firefox has an iOS version. Of course it's webkit, but it has Sync :)

Re: Chrome Won

#240

Post by qznc »

diminish wrote: post #223
andreasgal wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mozilla won the browser war. Firefox lost the browser fight. But there's many wars left to fight, and I hope Mozilla dives into a new one." Very poetic way of putting it. Couldn't agree more!

Mozilla lost the mobile OS war unfortunately if that what's inspiring you. What's next isn't clear to me

The Mobile OS war can still be continued. Mozilla should join forces with Lineage OS instead of wasting time with their own. Do the embrace, extend, extinguish strategy with Android.

Secure messaging is also still a hot topic. Join forces with Signal or Wire or Matrix or XMPP. For example, Wire intends to open source their server code and enable federation [0].

Voice control requires some weight for an Open Source solution. Specifically, we could use something which does not rely on the internet. PocketSphinx is an ok foundation, but needs more work.

[0] https://medium.com/@wireapp/open-sourcing-wire-server-code-e...

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