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Not sure this is necessarily the case - Google cross-promoted Chrome extremely heavily across all its web properties, ran massive ad campaigns, and contractuall

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.

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.