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This is the right general idea to be concerned about. Chrome was, in my opinion, an attempt to undermine Microsoft's dominance. It was also a business strategy,

This is the right general idea to be concerned about. Chrome was, in my opinion, an attempt to undermine Microsoft's dominance. It was also a business strategy, since a browser monopoly by MS could be the death to www.google.com. (I think that there is enough desktop browser competition to keep things in check for now, but it could become a problem.) I think a bigger potential threat is the dominance of Apple and their control over iOS with the requirement that "Apps that browse the web must use the iOS WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript" and other platform restrictions.

vbezhenar 10y ago
What iOS dominance are you talking about? Android has larger market share, last time I checked. Even if that's not true in some regions, it's not dominance at all. If people don't like iOS restrictions, they can use Android, it's very competitive platform. Don't forget that Windows is really the only universal desktop operating system. OS X hard wired to Macs and Linux has really tiny share on desktop market. So those laws about monopolists can be applied to Windows, but with iOS it's a very different situation.
- oneplane 10y ago
  It doesn't matter how big the OS is if the users don't use the browser. I'm not sure what the numbers are this year, but it's been iOS's browser and iOS's AppStore that has the most activity and/or money.
  - SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
    >iOS's AppStore that has the most activity and/or money. iOS AppStore has higher total sales so far, but the difference isn't that great, and Android is due to pass the AppStore in about 2018 [1]. I've seen a phone vs tablet breakdown that implied Android phone app sales actually surpassed iOS a few years ago, but I can't find it now. The huge difference was in iPad app sales which were much higher than Android, and it would be easy to believe that the difference in overall app revenues per store was made up by the difference in tablet revenues. [1] http://www.androidauthority.com/play-store-revenue-growth-2018-406474/ http://www.androidauthority.com/play-store-revenue-growth-20...
- cageface 10y ago
  No developers can afford to ignore Mobile Safari, so we're all limited by what Apple chooses to support. It's Apple's prerogative to prioritize what they want for Safari, of course, but there is no justification any more for blocking all other browser engines other than hamstringing web apps.
hackuser 10y ago
> Chrome was, in my opinion, an attempt to undermine Microsoft's dominance. It was also a business strategy, since a browser monopoly by MS could be the death to www.google.com Chrome was released in 2008, when Firefox' share was up to 28% [0] and Microsoft's monopoly already was over. IIRC, Google used former (or hired away then current?) Firefox developers. [0] Per one source I just looked at
- gcp 10y ago
  Google hired away some key developers, yes. Chrome was insurance for Google. Even with IE's monopoly broken, their search engine could become under threat if someone else outbid them for Firefox's default search. With Chrome having significant marketshare, this is no longer a worry. It's worth investigating how much money Google lost because Firefox switched to Yahoo, just in the USA, and even accounting for the people that switched back. The number is astoundingly high.
  - pmontra 10y ago
    It was insurance also because it let them be sure that Gmail and Docs would keep running and be fast in at least one browser. Remember when Firefox had a slow JS engine and IE was molassa? Microsoft would not go out of their way to make sure that Google could undermine Office, Mozilla maybe would speedup its JS and Apple probably not given its interest in apps.
    - flukus 10y ago
      If only there was some way they could have contributed to firefox to fix those issues.

vbezhenar 10y ago

What iOS dominance are you talking about? Android has larger market share, last time I checked. Even if that's not true in some regions, it's not dominance at all. If people don't like iOS restrictions, they can use Android, it's very competitive platform. Don't forget that Windows is really the only universal desktop operating system. OS X hard wired to Macs and Linux has really tiny share on desktop market. So those laws about monopolists can be applied to Windows, but with iOS it's a very different situation.

oneplane 10y ago
It doesn't matter how big the OS is if the users don't use the browser. I'm not sure what the numbers are this year, but it's been iOS's browser and iOS's AppStore that has the most activity and/or money.
- SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
  >iOS's AppStore that has the most activity and/or money. iOS AppStore has higher total sales so far, but the difference isn't that great, and Android is due to pass the AppStore in about 2018 [1]. I've seen a phone vs tablet breakdown that implied Android phone app sales actually surpassed iOS a few years ago, but I can't find it now. The huge difference was in iPad app sales which were much higher than Android, and it would be easy to believe that the difference in overall app revenues per store was made up by the difference in tablet revenues. [1] http://www.androidauthority.com/play-store-revenue-growth-2018-406474/ http://www.androidauthority.com/play-store-revenue-growth-20...
cageface 10y ago
No developers can afford to ignore Mobile Safari, so we're all limited by what Apple chooses to support. It's Apple's prerogative to prioritize what they want for Safari, of course, but there is no justification any more for blocking all other browser engines other than hamstringing web apps.

hackuser 10y ago

> Chrome was, in my opinion, an attempt to undermine Microsoft's dominance. It was also a business strategy, since a browser monopoly by MS could be the death to www.google.com Chrome was released in 2008, when Firefox' share was up to 28% [0] and Microsoft's monopoly already was over. IIRC, Google used former (or hired away then current?) Firefox developers. [0] Per one source I just looked at

gcp 10y ago
Google hired away some key developers, yes. Chrome was insurance for Google. Even with IE's monopoly broken, their search engine could become under threat if someone else outbid them for Firefox's default search. With Chrome having significant marketshare, this is no longer a worry. It's worth investigating how much money Google lost because Firefox switched to Yahoo, just in the USA, and even accounting for the people that switched back. The number is astoundingly high.
- pmontra 10y ago
  It was insurance also because it let them be sure that Gmail and Docs would keep running and be fast in at least one browser. Remember when Firefox had a slow JS engine and IE was molassa? Microsoft would not go out of their way to make sure that Google could undermine Office, Mozilla maybe would speedup its JS and Apple probably not given its interest in apps.
  - flukus 10y ago
    If only there was some way they could have contributed to firefox to fix those issues.