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People choose firefox over IE because firefox was better. People choose chrome over firefox and IE because chrome is better. Want to beat google? create better

People choose firefox over IE because firefox was better. People choose chrome over firefox and IE because chrome is better. Want to beat google? create better. Not negativity.

kevingadd 10y ago
This is a pretty naive view that ignores market effects. You can get away with reasoning like this when you're talking about userbases on the order of 100000, but not when literally dozens or hundreds of millions of people use your software.
jonchang 10y ago
Not sure this is necessarily the case - Google cross-promoted Chrome extremely heavily across all its web properties, ran massive ad campaigns, and contractually obligated Android vendors to preinstall and use Chrome as the default on their handsets. Mozilla, lacking the power or money to do any of these things, wouldn't be able to compete on these fronts, regardless of who built the better product.
- Quarrelsome 10y ago
  Firefox was over reliant on plug-ins, gave plug-ins too much power and the plug-in as well as firefox update mechanisms were messy. Chrome did more out of the box than firefox reducing the need for plug-ins, sandboxed plug-ins from destroying general browser performance and most importantly realised that updating was not a user concern and performed updates silently. There were also other innovations that Chrome did first that put them ahead of the field (I particularly remember their genius tab closing behaviour). _That's_ why they "won" not because of fucking adverts.
  - sgift 10y ago
    > _That's_ why they "won" not because of fucking adverts. Given that Opera was basically "Chrome without Google marketing" I heavily doubt that. (The first version of Chrome was such a blatant Opera clone, it was just funny)
    - Quarrelsome 10y ago
      that's a fair point, I more wish to counter the idea that Firefox was a better or even equal product at the time. Chrome was a clearly superior product to Firefox.
      - sgift 10y ago
        Fully accepted. Firefox got comfortable in its position when IE was 'defeated', same as IE before. They had "won", so no reason to innovate anymore. Maybe Chrome was a much needed "kick in the ass". I checked Firefox again a few days ago and it seems to be faster than I remember it, which gives me at least hope that they haven't given up yet.
    - guax 10y ago
      When chrome arrived opera had tons of features that were never present on chrome, to call it a copy is ignoring the main point of chrome early success. It was fast and simple, no extensions, no tons of features that no one cared about. It was wicked fast and simple. Thats it. Compare them for yourself: https://veeven.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/opera-96-te.png https://veeven.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/opera-96-te.png http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-chrome-browsing/home-large.png http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-chrome-browsing/home-lar...
  - pherq 10y ago
    The flaw with this notion, is that neither Firefox nor Opera beat IE. Chrome did. Most of the people who argue things like this seem to agree that Firefox and Opera were superior browsers to IE. If that was the case, why hadn't they eaten IE's market share long before Chrome was ever produced? Could it be that Chrome being widely advertised on the most visited site on the internet helped?
    - pyrale 10y ago
      Stats give FF at 45% market share, before Chrome got heavily advertised and took over. Chrome didn't beat IE. Firefox fought an all-out war and was not going anywhere either. What beat IE is an antitrust lawsuit actually.
      - pherq 10y ago
        I've never seen stats placing Firefox much above 30%, where are you getting 45% from?
        pyrale 10y ago
        http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/ http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/
        pherq 10y ago
        For reference, most of the surveys listed by Wikipedia[0] (not including that one, for some reason), list Firefox at about 30% in that period. I assume that the stats in your link comes from visitors to their own site, which given the focus (web development) seems like it could easily be biased towards more technical users (and thus over-represent Firefox compared to wider surveys). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
        pyrale 10y ago
        Regardless of the peak value, your data tends to confirm that IE was on its decline before the introduction of chrome. It is true, however, that chrome came at about the right time to capture a large share of its users (as well as a good share of FF users).
  - Ntrails 10y ago
    I actually use firefox at home, but for watching twitch streams I have to open chrome because firefox just fucking crawls if I've got a stream in another tab. No idea why. Chrome seems to cope fine so I just use it for that. Since I want my stream in a separate window on my other screen anyway it works out pretty well.
    - Sylos 10y ago
      Might be that it falls back to software rendering on your system and therefore stresses out the CPU. Try updating your graphics card driver, if it's not up-to-date.
  - Certhas 10y ago
    Of course they "won" (or their "win" achieved its current magnitude) because of adverts. It's naive to say otherwise. The technical innovations put them ahead of the curve for a brief period of time. Firefox reacted quite quickly (and was accused of blindly copying Chrome for it), and today there really is little to differentiate the two browsers in terms of performance. That's been the case for a while now. The difference is in google leveraging both its own platform as well as buying billboards and TV ad space for Chrome. That's unprecedented. If you don't think that's having an effect you're essentially saying the people who decided to finance that ad push are idiots. Despite that, Firefox still leads in market share in Germany (though with current trends that will change this year).
- TorKlingberg 10y ago
  The also bundled Chrome with Flash, Adobe Reader, Java and such. I cannot remember exactly which, and it depends on geographic location.
- necessity 10y ago
  MS did pretty much the same with IE and Windows... Someone made something better, people went for it.
- Cthulhu_ 10y ago
  For me it was; I guess I was a relatively early adopter, and Chrome was just so much faster and less bloated than the competition at the time. Clean UI (and it's still clean, they're keeping that promise), superior performance, frequent updates, superior built-in developer tools, etc. IDK if that caused it to grow to become the biggest browser, but it sold it for me.
- nsomaru 10y ago
  yeah, an update or two back on Android, Google Home App now opens link cards in some stripped down version of Chrome despite the fact that Firefox is set as the default browser on my phone.
ianai 10y ago
I'd write in something ultralight. Either the tracking or the Js frameworks are slowing modern browsers down. Probably both and other things too.
sarreph 10y ago
This. I think we've seen throughout societal history that if you want to affect change you have to do it through the path of least resistance for consumers; this means creating a better browser experience that people use not because they want to revolt, but because they gain utility from doing so.
- exergy 10y ago
  Can I ask something? For me Firefox IS better. Chrome on Android doesnt seem to support extensions (so no uBlock), doesn't have reader view, and would highly prefer it if I signed in. Orfox and Firefox both do not have these issues. Even on desktop, I prefer Firefox (although mostly due to higher familiarity with it). Does Chrome really have some killer feature that I'm not seeing? I can't seem to figure out where exactly Firefox lacks.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Fifer82 10y ago
    It was too slow and sluggish for too long. I just fired it up, and although that is not the case any more, at the end of the day... it is useful to just be mainstream when mainstream is good. https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0 https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpr...
  - bobajeff 10y ago
    On Android I find that Chrome and Brave tend to work better and be more comfortable to use.
  - sarreph 10y ago
    As Fifer says, it's a popularity issue. As a web dev, for me, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem that relies on who is the majority that I need to support — and that's where all my energy and time go. As a result, it becomes my browser of choice because I have to test in it so much. I also prefer the dev tools.
- 10y ago
pyrale 10y ago
The thing is, no one can reasonably outcompete Google, because they leverage every inch of their monopoly power. This is where regulation is supposed to come into play.
- smsm42 10y ago
  No one could reasonably outcompete Microsoft. Then suddenly nobody even discusses IE anymore. And tons of people use Linux.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - bobajeff 10y ago
    Well there was that browser ballot they had to show in Europe to Windows users as a result of a antitrust case.
    - smsm42 10y ago
      That wouldn't do anything if there was no viable alternative. And didn't, until viable alternative did show up.
      - bobajeff 10y ago
        Actually this happened after Firefox and Chrome had already been out.
  - usrusr 10y ago
    Your "suddenly" did not come out of thin air, it happenned after regulation. Microsoft was not broken down or fined to oblivion, but they did change their behavior a lot when they started hitting regulatory boundaries. Internet Explorer was practically put into maintenance mode for many years when it became clear that Microsoft would not be allowed to own the web like they owned the PC. We cannot know the outcome of an alternative history where Microsoft was given free hand to leverage the stranglehold on the web a fully enforced Internet Explorer (e.g. enforced like Safari in iOS?) could have developed. For all we know the outcome might even be Microsoft driven phones in every pocket, with everybody else unable to innovate on their own because they would be completely preoccupied with chasing compatibility with an ever-changing "Microsoft Html".
screwt 10y ago
True. But also the pendulum of which is better (Firefox vs Chrome) has swung back and forth a couple of times since Chrome first came out and overtook FF. At this point though most people are just using whichever was best N years ago, and haven't thought to compare recently.
- Sylos 10y ago
  Yeah, you still regularly see people claiming that Chrome's JavaScript engine is so much better than the competition, when in reality things have been neck-on-neck for years already. I think last time Chrome really had a major advantage was in 2012. Similarly, Opera. People will still tell you with absolute confidence that Opera is terrible compared to Chrome. It's been a Chrome-clone since 2013. You'd think people would fact-check their opinions somewhen within almost 4 years, but unfortunately they don't.
redditmigrant 10y ago
I think it can start with developers choosing firefox over chrome. Hackers were the first people to try out linux, when it was sub-par, didnt have most drivers. If not for those initial few foragers, we would still be stuck with Windows for most of our computing. Change in this space hardly ever starts because someone made the most consumer friendly, best performing piece of software. Change starts by the way of foragers who become contributors that leads to improved performance.
bnegreve 10y ago
Better can mean more than just "faster" or "more responsive". This post argues that Firefox is better in that it does not lock you in in the long term. Since it is not as visible as responsiveness, it is useful to have these discussions so people can decide what really is the "best" browser to them with full knowledge.
satysin 10y ago
This is how I feel also. I want to use Firefox but Chrome just works better. Mostly things actually sync properly with Chrome. Tabs, settings, extensions, etc. I was a Firefox user since the Phoenix days but switched to Chrome exactly a year ago as Firefox just wasn't meeting all my needs. Want me to switch back? Then fix things like sync and transparent restore of the user profile on a new install, etc.
pjmlp 10y ago
Chrome has definitely taken IE's place in pushing their own "standards" specially thanks to Android and ChromeOS.
tremon 10y ago
Developers chose IE over Netscape because IE was easier (more features). Developers choose Chrome over standards because Chrome is easier.
wiz21c 10y ago
Should I remind you that the article we're looking at is not about the convenience of a speedy browser, but the political choice of a browser that is not tied to a global company (or not much tied, I dunno for sure). I know this sounds like RMS but with a problem the size of Google, then things gets political.

People choose firefox over IE because firefox was better. People choose chrome over firefox and IE because chrome is better. Want to beat google? create better. Not negativity.

kevingadd 10y ago

This is a pretty naive view that ignores market effects. You can get away with reasoning like this when you're talking about userbases on the order of 100000, but not when literally dozens or hundreds of millions of people use your software.

jonchang 10y ago

Not sure this is necessarily the case - Google cross-promoted Chrome extremely heavily across all its web properties, ran massive ad campaigns, and contractually obligated Android vendors to preinstall and use Chrome as the default on their handsets. Mozilla, lacking the power or money to do any of these things, wouldn't be able to compete on these fronts, regardless of who built the better product.

Quarrelsome 10y ago
Firefox was over reliant on plug-ins, gave plug-ins too much power and the plug-in as well as firefox update mechanisms were messy. Chrome did more out of the box than firefox reducing the need for plug-ins, sandboxed plug-ins from destroying general browser performance and most importantly realised that updating was not a user concern and performed updates silently. There were also other innovations that Chrome did first that put them ahead of the field (I particularly remember their genius tab closing behaviour). _That's_ why they "won" not because of fucking adverts.
- sgift 10y ago
  > _That's_ why they "won" not because of fucking adverts. Given that Opera was basically "Chrome without Google marketing" I heavily doubt that. (The first version of Chrome was such a blatant Opera clone, it was just funny)
  - Quarrelsome 10y ago
    that's a fair point, I more wish to counter the idea that Firefox was a better or even equal product at the time. Chrome was a clearly superior product to Firefox.
    - sgift 10y ago
      Fully accepted. Firefox got comfortable in its position when IE was 'defeated', same as IE before. They had "won", so no reason to innovate anymore. Maybe Chrome was a much needed "kick in the ass". I checked Firefox again a few days ago and it seems to be faster than I remember it, which gives me at least hope that they haven't given up yet.
  - guax 10y ago
    When chrome arrived opera had tons of features that were never present on chrome, to call it a copy is ignoring the main point of chrome early success. It was fast and simple, no extensions, no tons of features that no one cared about. It was wicked fast and simple. Thats it. Compare them for yourself: https://veeven.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/opera-96-te.png https://veeven.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/opera-96-te.png http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-chrome-browsing/home-large.png http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-chrome-browsing/home-lar...
- pherq 10y ago
  The flaw with this notion, is that neither Firefox nor Opera beat IE. Chrome did. Most of the people who argue things like this seem to agree that Firefox and Opera were superior browsers to IE. If that was the case, why hadn't they eaten IE's market share long before Chrome was ever produced? Could it be that Chrome being widely advertised on the most visited site on the internet helped?
  - pyrale 10y ago
    Stats give FF at 45% market share, before Chrome got heavily advertised and took over. Chrome didn't beat IE. Firefox fought an all-out war and was not going anywhere either. What beat IE is an antitrust lawsuit actually.
    - pherq 10y ago
      I've never seen stats placing Firefox much above 30%, where are you getting 45% from?
      - pyrale 10y ago
        http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/ http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/
        pherq 10y ago
        For reference, most of the surveys listed by Wikipedia[0] (not including that one, for some reason), list Firefox at about 30% in that period. I assume that the stats in your link comes from visitors to their own site, which given the focus (web development) seems like it could easily be biased towards more technical users (and thus over-represent Firefox compared to wider surveys). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
        pyrale 10y ago
        Regardless of the peak value, your data tends to confirm that IE was on its decline before the introduction of chrome. It is true, however, that chrome came at about the right time to capture a large share of its users (as well as a good share of FF users).
- Ntrails 10y ago
  I actually use firefox at home, but for watching twitch streams I have to open chrome because firefox just fucking crawls if I've got a stream in another tab. No idea why. Chrome seems to cope fine so I just use it for that. Since I want my stream in a separate window on my other screen anyway it works out pretty well.
  - Sylos 10y ago
    Might be that it falls back to software rendering on your system and therefore stresses out the CPU. Try updating your graphics card driver, if it's not up-to-date.
- Certhas 10y ago
  Of course they "won" (or their "win" achieved its current magnitude) because of adverts. It's naive to say otherwise. The technical innovations put them ahead of the curve for a brief period of time. Firefox reacted quite quickly (and was accused of blindly copying Chrome for it), and today there really is little to differentiate the two browsers in terms of performance. That's been the case for a while now. The difference is in google leveraging both its own platform as well as buying billboards and TV ad space for Chrome. That's unprecedented. If you don't think that's having an effect you're essentially saying the people who decided to finance that ad push are idiots. Despite that, Firefox still leads in market share in Germany (though with current trends that will change this year).
TorKlingberg 10y ago
The also bundled Chrome with Flash, Adobe Reader, Java and such. I cannot remember exactly which, and it depends on geographic location.
necessity 10y ago
MS did pretty much the same with IE and Windows... Someone made something better, people went for it.
Cthulhu_ 10y ago
For me it was; I guess I was a relatively early adopter, and Chrome was just so much faster and less bloated than the competition at the time. Clean UI (and it's still clean, they're keeping that promise), superior performance, frequent updates, superior built-in developer tools, etc. IDK if that caused it to grow to become the biggest browser, but it sold it for me.
nsomaru 10y ago
yeah, an update or two back on Android, Google Home App now opens link cards in some stripped down version of Chrome despite the fact that Firefox is set as the default browser on my phone.

ianai 10y ago

I'd write in something ultralight. Either the tracking or the Js frameworks are slowing modern browsers down. Probably both and other things too.

sarreph 10y ago

This. I think we've seen throughout societal history that if you want to affect change you have to do it through the path of least resistance for consumers; this means creating a better browser experience that people use not because they want to revolt, but because they gain utility from doing so.

exergy 10y ago
Can I ask something? For me Firefox IS better. Chrome on Android doesnt seem to support extensions (so no uBlock), doesn't have reader view, and would highly prefer it if I signed in. Orfox and Firefox both do not have these issues. Even on desktop, I prefer Firefox (although mostly due to higher familiarity with it). Does Chrome really have some killer feature that I'm not seeing? I can't seem to figure out where exactly Firefox lacks.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Fifer82 10y ago
  It was too slow and sluggish for too long. I just fired it up, and although that is not the case any more, at the end of the day... it is useful to just be mainstream when mainstream is good. https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0 https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpr...
- bobajeff 10y ago
  On Android I find that Chrome and Brave tend to work better and be more comfortable to use.
- sarreph 10y ago
  As Fifer says, it's a popularity issue. As a web dev, for me, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem that relies on who is the majority that I need to support — and that's where all my energy and time go. As a result, it becomes my browser of choice because I have to test in it so much. I also prefer the dev tools.
10y ago

pyrale 10y ago

The thing is, no one can reasonably outcompete Google, because they leverage every inch of their monopoly power. This is where regulation is supposed to come into play.

smsm42 10y ago
No one could reasonably outcompete Microsoft. Then suddenly nobody even discusses IE anymore. And tons of people use Linux.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- bobajeff 10y ago
  Well there was that browser ballot they had to show in Europe to Windows users as a result of a antitrust case.
  - smsm42 10y ago
    That wouldn't do anything if there was no viable alternative. And didn't, until viable alternative did show up.
    - bobajeff 10y ago
      Actually this happened after Firefox and Chrome had already been out.
- usrusr 10y ago
  Your "suddenly" did not come out of thin air, it happenned after regulation. Microsoft was not broken down or fined to oblivion, but they did change their behavior a lot when they started hitting regulatory boundaries. Internet Explorer was practically put into maintenance mode for many years when it became clear that Microsoft would not be allowed to own the web like they owned the PC. We cannot know the outcome of an alternative history where Microsoft was given free hand to leverage the stranglehold on the web a fully enforced Internet Explorer (e.g. enforced like Safari in iOS?) could have developed. For all we know the outcome might even be Microsoft driven phones in every pocket, with everybody else unable to innovate on their own because they would be completely preoccupied with chasing compatibility with an ever-changing "Microsoft Html".

screwt 10y ago

True. But also the pendulum of which is better (Firefox vs Chrome) has swung back and forth a couple of times since Chrome first came out and overtook FF. At this point though most people are just using whichever was best N years ago, and haven't thought to compare recently.

Sylos 10y ago
Yeah, you still regularly see people claiming that Chrome's JavaScript engine is so much better than the competition, when in reality things have been neck-on-neck for years already. I think last time Chrome really had a major advantage was in 2012. Similarly, Opera. People will still tell you with absolute confidence that Opera is terrible compared to Chrome. It's been a Chrome-clone since 2013. You'd think people would fact-check their opinions somewhen within almost 4 years, but unfortunately they don't.

redditmigrant 10y ago

I think it can start with developers choosing firefox over chrome. Hackers were the first people to try out linux, when it was sub-par, didnt have most drivers. If not for those initial few foragers, we would still be stuck with Windows for most of our computing. Change in this space hardly ever starts because someone made the most consumer friendly, best performing piece of software. Change starts by the way of foragers who become contributors that leads to improved performance.

bnegreve 10y ago

Better can mean more than just "faster" or "more responsive". This post argues that Firefox is better in that it does not lock you in in the long term. Since it is not as visible as responsiveness, it is useful to have these discussions so people can decide what really is the "best" browser to them with full knowledge.

satysin 10y ago

This is how I feel also. I want to use Firefox but Chrome just works better. Mostly things actually sync properly with Chrome. Tabs, settings, extensions, etc. I was a Firefox user since the Phoenix days but switched to Chrome exactly a year ago as Firefox just wasn't meeting all my needs. Want me to switch back? Then fix things like sync and transparent restore of the user profile on a new install, etc.

pjmlp 10y ago

Chrome has definitely taken IE's place in pushing their own "standards" specially thanks to Android and ChromeOS.

tremon 10y ago

Developers chose IE over Netscape because IE was easier (more features). Developers choose Chrome over standards because Chrome is easier.

wiz21c 10y ago

Should I remind you that the article we're looking at is not about the convenience of a speedy browser, but the political choice of a browser that is not tied to a global company (or not much tied, I dunno for sure). I know this sounds like RMS but with a problem the size of Google, then things gets political.