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Firefox created the revolution of "better browsers"! Google was smart enough to have market their own browser by having themselves be the default search on it.

Firefox created the revolution of "better browsers"! Google was smart enough to have market their own browser by having themselves be the default search on it. Once you land on Google, the "install Chrome for a better experience" slowly had people move to it.

afsina 11y ago
>the "install Chrome for a better experience" slowly had people move to it. No, people moved to Chrome because it was a much better product.
- iopq 11y ago
  Only before Firefox optimized its JS engine to bring it to par.
  - Niten 11y ago
    Firefox's security is still nowhere near up to par, unfortunately.
    - robin_reala 11y ago
      156 CVEs in Firefox this year compared to 133 in Chrome. Worse, but not ‘nowhere near up to par’.
      - Excavator 11y ago
        Some relevant, interesting, material on counting CVEs: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JustinSchuh/posts/CNEgtJWYTb5 https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JustinSchuh/posts/CNEgtJWYTb5 http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2010/05/vulnerability-databases-and-pie-charts.html http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2010/05/vulnerability-databases-...
        robin_reala 11y ago
        Good points there, will bear in mind in the future.
      - Niten 11y ago
        CVE counting is a poor proxy for actual security. A browser that does not sandbox its renderers or enforce a permissions model on its extensions cannot reasonably be considered secure in 2015.
        JupiterMoon 11y ago
        > enforce a permissions model on its extensions Why? Surely as with any software one should only install extensions that one trusts?
        iopq 11y ago
        You trusted it, but you were wrong
    - iopq 11y ago
      Then neither is Chrome. If you want security you probably want to look into Servo.
      - Niten 11y ago
        No, Chrome has a materially better security architecture than Firefox. https://seclab.stanford.edu/websec/chromium/chromium-security-architecture.pdf https://seclab.stanford.edu/websec/chromium/chromium-securit... When it's ready, hopefully Servo will be used as the basis for a browser that can provide security comparable to Chrome. But there's much more to that comprehensive goal than just writing a renderer in Rust.
        pcwalton 11y ago
        > But there's much more to that comprehensive goal than just writing a renderer in Rust. Which is why the latest Servo builds have very strict sandboxing. People assume that Servo's security story is "just write it in Rust and it'll magically be secure". In reality, nobody on the team is that naive. The goal is to create a browser engine that achieves and significantly exceeds the state of the art. The architecture for that exists right now.
        Niten 11y ago
        The architecture may exist, by Servo as a day-to-day usable browser does not yet. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely look forward to the day that it does. Neat that they have a sandbox up and running, though. I wasn't aware of that. Is there a paper somewhere I can read about their sandbox architecture?
        pcwalton 11y ago
        There is no paper per se, but you can look at the code (including readme) for the sandbox here: https://github.com/pcwalton/gaol https://github.com/pcwalton/gaol
- josteink 11y ago
  To some people, that may be. Either way, there's no denying that Google literally spammed Chrome everywhere, and often with misleading or dishonest text. "Your browser is outdated. Upgrade it now (to Chrome) for a better experience", "Make youtube faster with Chrome" etc etc. It was literally impossible to go anywhere on the web, without the top of every second screen you visited saying "Upgrade to Chrome". It was massive and it was dishonest. Ofcourse moms and dads everywhere jumped on this, like they jump on the "free scans" and "you have a virus" messages without ever considering if Chrome was a different browser or there being any technical merit to the claims about being better. Google used the exact same strategy as malware authors. They even bundled it as a drive-by install with other popular software (like Flash). Update flash and suddenly your default browser is Chrome, which conveniently imported all your Firefox data and now reports all of that to Google, one keystroke at a time. It's hard not to call this spyware. Plain and simple: Chrome's marketshare is based on being evil and nothing else. These days Chrome may feel like a better product, because Google keeps making their pages for Chrome and nothing else, using proprietary Google only extensions. And that reminds me of a story I've heard before... Something about there E's..?
  - millstone 11y ago
    This ought not to be in past tense. There is still only one ad on www.google.com: "A better way to browse the web..."
  - Eupolemos 11y ago
    While I disagree with "free scans" and "evil", I think you're hitting pretty close to the mark. Back then, Google's Chrome was still an exciting new thing being discovered by many non-techies, fast and simple. Google seemed like a company dead set on being the good guys. Things have muddled since, IMHO.
    - wutbrodo 11y ago
      > Back then, Google's Chrome was still an exciting new thing being discovered by many non-techies, fast and simple. Google seemed like a company dead set on being the good guys. Yea this was pretty odd. Usually all the people around me are the last to switch, because they make their decisions based on "whichever thing they saw first or more prominently". In Chrome's case, I switched quite a while after most of my friends: they all saw Chrome marketed all over the place while I consciously enjoyed a Firefox feature or two that Chrome was lacking. I finally ended up switching when Firefox's incredible slowness made it too painful to keep using (this was around v3.5, I believe).
- bzbarsky 11y ago
  Some did. Some people moved to Chrome because they saw ads for it everywhere. Some moved to Chrome because it was bundled with something else they installed (e.g. Flash, Acrobat Reader), with the "make it the default browser checkbox" pre-checked by default. Google spent a fair amount of money for a few years on marketing and paying all sorts of other software to bundle Chrome as an opt-out.
- ionised 11y ago
  It's still just a browser and most of the world doesn't care about the intracacies of one browser or the other in determining which is better like more tech savvy people do. They just want something that works and for most people they were told that that was Chrome, because it was pushed right in their faces from Google Search and whatever other Google services they used. Not to mention all the installers they had it bundled with. I'm convinced it was 80% advertising that got the average person to install desktop Chrome originally. On mobile I think it was 99% due it being the default on Android. Most people don't change default apps or settings.
- rplnt 11y ago
  No, people moved there because it had multi-million dollar campaign. Ads everywhere from radio, tv, to outdoor posters and billboards is what they had to pay for, and then another millions worth of advertising through ad sense, youtube, google. Still excluding priceless ad positions like mentioned above. Then there was their active push to eliminate other browser by providing chrome-only experiences. Mostly tech demos and games, but also actively blocking random features in other browsers. And let's not forget android. So in short, no, people didn't move there because it was better. You are really overestimating people.
  - dbattaglia 11y ago
    You're probably right, but as a personal anecdote, I switched to chrome when it came out because I felt it was a better browser. The lack of clutter and the significantly faster JS engine made it feel far nicer to me than FF. For I.E. and Safari it wasn't even a competition. That was circa 2008.

afsina 11y ago

>the "install Chrome for a better experience" slowly had people move to it. No, people moved to Chrome because it was a much better product.

iopq 11y ago
Only before Firefox optimized its JS engine to bring it to par.
- Niten 11y ago
  Firefox's security is still nowhere near up to par, unfortunately.
  - robin_reala 11y ago
    156 CVEs in Firefox this year compared to 133 in Chrome. Worse, but not ‘nowhere near up to par’.
    - Excavator 11y ago
      Some relevant, interesting, material on counting CVEs: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JustinSchuh/posts/CNEgtJWYTb5 https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JustinSchuh/posts/CNEgtJWYTb5 http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2010/05/vulnerability-databases-and-pie-charts.html http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2010/05/vulnerability-databases-...
      - robin_reala 11y ago
        Good points there, will bear in mind in the future.
    - Niten 11y ago
      CVE counting is a poor proxy for actual security. A browser that does not sandbox its renderers or enforce a permissions model on its extensions cannot reasonably be considered secure in 2015.
      - JupiterMoon 11y ago
        > enforce a permissions model on its extensions Why? Surely as with any software one should only install extensions that one trusts?
        iopq 11y ago
        You trusted it, but you were wrong
  - iopq 11y ago
    Then neither is Chrome. If you want security you probably want to look into Servo.
    - Niten 11y ago
      No, Chrome has a materially better security architecture than Firefox. https://seclab.stanford.edu/websec/chromium/chromium-security-architecture.pdf https://seclab.stanford.edu/websec/chromium/chromium-securit... When it's ready, hopefully Servo will be used as the basis for a browser that can provide security comparable to Chrome. But there's much more to that comprehensive goal than just writing a renderer in Rust.
      - pcwalton 11y ago
        > But there's much more to that comprehensive goal than just writing a renderer in Rust. Which is why the latest Servo builds have very strict sandboxing. People assume that Servo's security story is "just write it in Rust and it'll magically be secure". In reality, nobody on the team is that naive. The goal is to create a browser engine that achieves and significantly exceeds the state of the art. The architecture for that exists right now.
        Niten 11y ago
        The architecture may exist, by Servo as a day-to-day usable browser does not yet. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely look forward to the day that it does. Neat that they have a sandbox up and running, though. I wasn't aware of that. Is there a paper somewhere I can read about their sandbox architecture?
        pcwalton 11y ago
        There is no paper per se, but you can look at the code (including readme) for the sandbox here: https://github.com/pcwalton/gaol https://github.com/pcwalton/gaol
josteink 11y ago
To some people, that may be. Either way, there's no denying that Google literally spammed Chrome everywhere, and often with misleading or dishonest text. "Your browser is outdated. Upgrade it now (to Chrome) for a better experience", "Make youtube faster with Chrome" etc etc. It was literally impossible to go anywhere on the web, without the top of every second screen you visited saying "Upgrade to Chrome". It was massive and it was dishonest. Ofcourse moms and dads everywhere jumped on this, like they jump on the "free scans" and "you have a virus" messages without ever considering if Chrome was a different browser or there being any technical merit to the claims about being better. Google used the exact same strategy as malware authors. They even bundled it as a drive-by install with other popular software (like Flash). Update flash and suddenly your default browser is Chrome, which conveniently imported all your Firefox data and now reports all of that to Google, one keystroke at a time. It's hard not to call this spyware. Plain and simple: Chrome's marketshare is based on being evil and nothing else. These days Chrome may feel like a better product, because Google keeps making their pages for Chrome and nothing else, using proprietary Google only extensions. And that reminds me of a story I've heard before... Something about there E's..?
- millstone 11y ago
  This ought not to be in past tense. There is still only one ad on www.google.com: "A better way to browse the web..."
- Eupolemos 11y ago
  While I disagree with "free scans" and "evil", I think you're hitting pretty close to the mark. Back then, Google's Chrome was still an exciting new thing being discovered by many non-techies, fast and simple. Google seemed like a company dead set on being the good guys. Things have muddled since, IMHO.
  - wutbrodo 11y ago
    > Back then, Google's Chrome was still an exciting new thing being discovered by many non-techies, fast and simple. Google seemed like a company dead set on being the good guys. Yea this was pretty odd. Usually all the people around me are the last to switch, because they make their decisions based on "whichever thing they saw first or more prominently". In Chrome's case, I switched quite a while after most of my friends: they all saw Chrome marketed all over the place while I consciously enjoyed a Firefox feature or two that Chrome was lacking. I finally ended up switching when Firefox's incredible slowness made it too painful to keep using (this was around v3.5, I believe).
bzbarsky 11y ago
Some did. Some people moved to Chrome because they saw ads for it everywhere. Some moved to Chrome because it was bundled with something else they installed (e.g. Flash, Acrobat Reader), with the "make it the default browser checkbox" pre-checked by default. Google spent a fair amount of money for a few years on marketing and paying all sorts of other software to bundle Chrome as an opt-out.
ionised 11y ago
It's still just a browser and most of the world doesn't care about the intracacies of one browser or the other in determining which is better like more tech savvy people do. They just want something that works and for most people they were told that that was Chrome, because it was pushed right in their faces from Google Search and whatever other Google services they used. Not to mention all the installers they had it bundled with. I'm convinced it was 80% advertising that got the average person to install desktop Chrome originally. On mobile I think it was 99% due it being the default on Android. Most people don't change default apps or settings.
rplnt 11y ago
No, people moved there because it had multi-million dollar campaign. Ads everywhere from radio, tv, to outdoor posters and billboards is what they had to pay for, and then another millions worth of advertising through ad sense, youtube, google. Still excluding priceless ad positions like mentioned above. Then there was their active push to eliminate other browser by providing chrome-only experiences. Mostly tech demos and games, but also actively blocking random features in other browsers. And let's not forget android. So in short, no, people didn't move there because it was better. You are really overestimating people.
- dbattaglia 11y ago
  You're probably right, but as a personal anecdote, I switched to chrome when it came out because I felt it was a better browser. The lack of clutter and the significantly faster JS engine made it feel far nicer to me than FF. For I.E. and Safari it wasn't even a competition. That was circa 2008.