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I'm not sure it's true that Mozilla has rebounded. Only a few years ago it used to be a neck and neck race between Chrome and Firefox to see how quickly new bro

by Touche 10y ago

I'm not sure it's true that Mozilla has rebounded. Only a few years ago it used to be a neck and neck race between Chrome and Firefox to see how quickly new browser features get developed. Now it seems that Chrome has pulled far ahead, and Firefox is often in 3rd place. I can't think of too many recent features that FF has been a leader on. SW kinda, I guess, but that's it. Often either Edge or Safari is also faster to adopt (Safari with web components, for example), depending on the feature.

scholia 10y ago
Chrome gets free advertising on the world's most valuable website where you can't buy advertising for any price: the Google Search home page. Google also spends tons of money paying companies to stealth-install Chrome when users think they're installing something else from, for example, Adobe. I'm not saying Chrome is a bad browser but it sure as heck ain't a level playing field....
- Touche 10y ago
  Very true, and it was just as true a few years ago when Firefox was able to keep pace. So I think it's fair to say they are slipping.
  - scholia 10y ago
    Firefox was out four or five years before Chrome appeared. When it started, it was competing against an aging IE6. I don't think it has never kept pace with Chrome. Or if so, not for very long. Even if the products had been equally good, which they weren't, Google just has far more market power.
    - Touche 10y ago
      It kept pace with Chrome up until a few years ago, probably around the time that Eich left. Not saying that's causal, I don't know if it is.
- cpeterso 10y ago
  As recently as last year, Google was paying Adobe to bundle Chrome as an opt-out install when Firefox users downloaded the Flash NPAPI plugin. The irony is that the downloaded NPAPI plugin would not be used because the Flash installer would set Chrome as the default browser and Chrome bundles its own Flash PPAPI plugin. Screenshot: https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/714510465620021248 https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/714510465620021248
Manishearth 10y ago
> Now it seems that Chrome has pulled far ahead, and Firefox is often in 3rd place. I can't think of too many recent features that FF has been a leader on. SW kinda, I guess, but that's it. I'd like more evidence to back this claim. I'd like to point to this comment of mine (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227907) about CSS properties. Chrome is ahead on things like Web Components because these are features that Google has wanted and pushed. It's not due to lack of implementation effort that they're disabled in Firefox, it's because Firefox wants to wait for the standardization process to continue for a bit. I mean, Firefox has XBL internally so it's not hard to imagine that most of the framework for web components already existed. Firefox was also using ES6 internally for years. When it comes to browsers being "leaders" in features it's always a bit more nuanced than that due to standardization and the features the browser vendor itself wants to push before it is standardized.
- Touche 10y ago
  > Chrome is ahead on things like Web Components because these are features that Google has wanted and pushed. It's a feature that Firefox wanted and pushed as well, in the past. They've stopped being leaders on this particular feature though (partly because some of the proponents left, i imagine). > It's not due to lack of implementation effort that they're disabled in Firefox, it's because Firefox wants to wait for the standardization process to continue for a bit. You're talking about the old v0 specs that they implemented and disabled. The v1 specs are already standardized and in Chrome stable, shadow DOM is in Safari stable. That's my real point, not that Firefox is behind Chrome, they're usually in 3rd place on most things.
  - Manishearth 10y ago
    Fair. Are there any other examples? Firefox pushed Fetch and SW. Also grid, I think, though ICBW there.

by Touche 10y ago

scholia 10y ago

Chrome gets free advertising on the world's most valuable website where you can't buy advertising for any price: the Google Search home page. Google also spends tons of money paying companies to stealth-install Chrome when users think they're installing something else from, for example, Adobe. I'm not saying Chrome is a bad browser but it sure as heck ain't a level playing field....

Touche 10y ago
Very true, and it was just as true a few years ago when Firefox was able to keep pace. So I think it's fair to say they are slipping.
- scholia 10y ago
  Firefox was out four or five years before Chrome appeared. When it started, it was competing against an aging IE6. I don't think it has never kept pace with Chrome. Or if so, not for very long. Even if the products had been equally good, which they weren't, Google just has far more market power.
  - Touche 10y ago
    It kept pace with Chrome up until a few years ago, probably around the time that Eich left. Not saying that's causal, I don't know if it is.
cpeterso 10y ago
As recently as last year, Google was paying Adobe to bundle Chrome as an opt-out install when Firefox users downloaded the Flash NPAPI plugin. The irony is that the downloaded NPAPI plugin would not be used because the Flash installer would set Chrome as the default browser and Chrome bundles its own Flash PPAPI plugin. Screenshot: https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/714510465620021248 https://twitter.com/cpeterso/status/714510465620021248

Manishearth 10y ago

> Now it seems that Chrome has pulled far ahead, and Firefox is often in 3rd place. I can't think of too many recent features that FF has been a leader on. SW kinda, I guess, but that's it. I'd like more evidence to back this claim. I'd like to point to this comment of mine (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227907) about CSS properties. Chrome is ahead on things like Web Components because these are features that Google has wanted and pushed. It's not due to lack of implementation effort that they're disabled in Firefox, it's because Firefox wants to wait for the standardization process to continue for a bit. I mean, Firefox has XBL internally so it's not hard to imagine that most of the framework for web components already existed. Firefox was also using ES6 internally for years. When it comes to browsers being "leaders" in features it's always a bit more nuanced than that due to standardization and the features the browser vendor itself wants to push before it is standardized.

Touche 10y ago
> Chrome is ahead on things like Web Components because these are features that Google has wanted and pushed. It's a feature that Firefox wanted and pushed as well, in the past. They've stopped being leaders on this particular feature though (partly because some of the proponents left, i imagine). > It's not due to lack of implementation effort that they're disabled in Firefox, it's because Firefox wants to wait for the standardization process to continue for a bit. You're talking about the old v0 specs that they implemented and disabled. The v1 specs are already standardized and in Chrome stable, shadow DOM is in Safari stable. That's my real point, not that Firefox is behind Chrome, they're usually in 3rd place on most things.
- Manishearth 10y ago
  Fair. Are there any other examples? Firefox pushed Fetch and SW. Also grid, I think, though ICBW there.