8 ms·

Microsoft's browsers return to losing habits, fall to 25% share

30 points by chandanrai 10y ago

eruditely 10y ago
Its right about time for a disrupt effort, Chrome is outrageously slow.
- xbmcuser 10y ago
  Slow how to me it still loads any website the fastest. The biggest complain about chrome is that it is bloated specially if you use more than few tabs. But I don't see google working on fixing or improving that much simply because using more than a few tabs is an edge case which probably less than 1% of the users use.
  - yladiz 10y ago
    > using more than a few tabs is an edge case which probably less than 1% of the users use Using basic functionality of a browser (opening multiple tabs at a time) is an edge case? Every person I know that uses Chrome has at least 5-10 tabs open at a time. I wouldn't call it an edge case, but I would guess that the minority uses less than 3-4 tabs at a time.
  - jve 10y ago
    If youre not seeing it, see it now: they are doing something about it: http://blog.strml.net/2017/01/chrome-56-now-aggressively-throttles.html http://blog.strml.net/2017/01/chrome-56-now-aggressively-thr...
- NTripleOne 10y ago
  Really? Because firefox being slow was the entire reason I switched in the first place.
  - Piskvorrr 10y ago
    That's the Endless Treadmill. Netscape Navigator is slow, use this new and fast browser called IE. [time passes] IE is slow, use this new and fast browser called Firefox. [time passes] Firefox is slow, use this new and fast browser called Chrome. Chrome is slow...[to be continued]
    - NTripleOne 10y ago
      But the thing is, Chrome isn't slow.
      - Piskvorrr 10y ago
        Neither is Firefox. (Unless you clobber them with a bazillion extensions, leave Flash always-on and open 3000 tabs) However, that is the perception. I agree that in the recent years there's been a major push to make browsers great again, but the speed comes at expense of memory bloat. This might be an acceptable tradeoff - until you need to do something non-browser as well.
        NTripleOne 10y ago
        Firefox has come a long way since the day I switched that's for sure, but it was slow back then, and that was before I even had the necessity for any extensions. Even now, for me Chrome cold boots far faster than Firefox does - after doing a taskkill /f /im chrome.exe, chrome opens anywhere from 0.4 to 1.2 seconds after hitting "ok" on a run dialog with "chrome" entered in it, but the same thing with "firefox" in it takes from 3 to 8 seconds to open. And that's not even a fair test either, as chrome has about 20 or so extensions installed and firefox has none. Don't even get me started on the android variants of the two either, firefox just feels sluggish and unresponsive next to chrome.
        Piskvorrr 10y ago
        Not sure about Android, but is cold boot time representative of anything? Personally, I do that two-three times a day, max. Open/close tabs, now that happens all the time. (To be precise: I don't care which browser does it fastest. All I care is that I don't perceive latency - milliseconds do not matter, hundreds of milliseconds do)
kyriakos 10y ago
won't be really hard to improve the market share: - make edge cross platform. - make the extensions system on par with chromes and as easy to launch an extension - fix its UI lag on Windows 10 - maybe open source it
- lstamour 10y ago
  Remove ads & featured junk? Make Google a more prominent default search engine?
- brianwawok 10y ago
  I don't think adding OSX or Linux users will fix the problem. Nor will open or closed source.
  - jbhatab 10y ago
    I will never use IE if it doesn't support all platforms.
  - kyriakos 10y ago
    having a consistent browser experience over multiple platforms is an added feature for many users. e.g. I install chrome in all platforms I use.
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      My point is OSX + Linux is like 5% of the desktop OS. No matter how awesome Edge team made it, 1-2% more users will do VERY VERY little compared to the 50% of users they have lost on desktop machines in the past 5 years. They would be absolutely insane to even spend 1 money on adding new OSX users when Windows users (who get their app for FREE and with NO WORK) are leaving left and right. Gotta fix the bleeding before you worry about the lipstick.
      - kyriakos 10y ago
        You're forgetting Mobile. Using Chrome on android and Windows gives you the benefit of shared accounts, shared passwords, bookmarks and history.
flukus 10y ago
Google and chrome are the biggest threat we have to the open internet at the moment.
- corv 10y ago
  Agreed. I don't understand why there are still memes against Internet Explorer floating around. Edge is not the problem.
  - jazoom 10y ago
    As a web developer I'd rather develop for Chrome than IE/Edge. It's pretty much just that simple.
    - svl 10y ago
      That is exactly the attitude web developers had toward the IE/Netscape situation around the year 2000. I think that as web developers we have the responsibility to consider the health of the entire ecosystem, as well as long term consequences. If not us, then who?
      - icebraining 10y ago
        It hardly matters; the Edge teams said that any differences in behaviour compared to Webkit are bugs[1], so they've given up their position as an alternative. [1] https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/06/17/building-a-more-interoperable-web-with-microsoft-edge/ https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/06/17/building-a-mo...
      - jazoom 10y ago
        Once Safari and Edge stop giving me headaches I might be more sympathetic to their cause. We still have new browsers popping up, like Brave and Vivaldi. We still have Firefox, which is decent. I don't understand what your concern is in this context.
        10y ago
gushie 10y ago
I tried using Edge, but just get a "This app can't open" message. I'm sure I could fix it if I wanted to but it's easier to just run Chrome.
astannard 10y ago
I just dont like the browser, the things I dont like are: - the search / address box are not obviously that until you click on it - the window bar area to click on and drag the window around is small and not obvious Not major things but it makes it less intuitive to use than chrome in my opinion.
gcp 10y ago
Does this mean we'll get even more notifications on Windows 10?

30 points by chandanrai 10y ago

eruditely 10y ago

Its right about time for a disrupt effort, Chrome is outrageously slow.

xbmcuser 10y ago
Slow how to me it still loads any website the fastest. The biggest complain about chrome is that it is bloated specially if you use more than few tabs. But I don't see google working on fixing or improving that much simply because using more than a few tabs is an edge case which probably less than 1% of the users use.
- yladiz 10y ago
  > using more than a few tabs is an edge case which probably less than 1% of the users use Using basic functionality of a browser (opening multiple tabs at a time) is an edge case? Every person I know that uses Chrome has at least 5-10 tabs open at a time. I wouldn't call it an edge case, but I would guess that the minority uses less than 3-4 tabs at a time.
- jve 10y ago
  If youre not seeing it, see it now: they are doing something about it: http://blog.strml.net/2017/01/chrome-56-now-aggressively-throttles.html http://blog.strml.net/2017/01/chrome-56-now-aggressively-thr...
NTripleOne 10y ago
Really? Because firefox being slow was the entire reason I switched in the first place.
- Piskvorrr 10y ago
  That's the Endless Treadmill. Netscape Navigator is slow, use this new and fast browser called IE. [time passes] IE is slow, use this new and fast browser called Firefox. [time passes] Firefox is slow, use this new and fast browser called Chrome. Chrome is slow...[to be continued]
  - NTripleOne 10y ago
    But the thing is, Chrome isn't slow.
    - Piskvorrr 10y ago
      Neither is Firefox. (Unless you clobber them with a bazillion extensions, leave Flash always-on and open 3000 tabs) However, that is the perception. I agree that in the recent years there's been a major push to make browsers great again, but the speed comes at expense of memory bloat. This might be an acceptable tradeoff - until you need to do something non-browser as well.
      - NTripleOne 10y ago
        Firefox has come a long way since the day I switched that's for sure, but it was slow back then, and that was before I even had the necessity for any extensions. Even now, for me Chrome cold boots far faster than Firefox does - after doing a taskkill /f /im chrome.exe, chrome opens anywhere from 0.4 to 1.2 seconds after hitting "ok" on a run dialog with "chrome" entered in it, but the same thing with "firefox" in it takes from 3 to 8 seconds to open. And that's not even a fair test either, as chrome has about 20 or so extensions installed and firefox has none. Don't even get me started on the android variants of the two either, firefox just feels sluggish and unresponsive next to chrome.
        Piskvorrr 10y ago
        Not sure about Android, but is cold boot time representative of anything? Personally, I do that two-three times a day, max. Open/close tabs, now that happens all the time. (To be precise: I don't care which browser does it fastest. All I care is that I don't perceive latency - milliseconds do not matter, hundreds of milliseconds do)

kyriakos 10y ago

won't be really hard to improve the market share: - make edge cross platform. - make the extensions system on par with chromes and as easy to launch an extension - fix its UI lag on Windows 10 - maybe open source it

lstamour 10y ago
Remove ads & featured junk? Make Google a more prominent default search engine?
brianwawok 10y ago
I don't think adding OSX or Linux users will fix the problem. Nor will open or closed source.
- jbhatab 10y ago
  I will never use IE if it doesn't support all platforms.
- kyriakos 10y ago
  having a consistent browser experience over multiple platforms is an added feature for many users. e.g. I install chrome in all platforms I use.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    My point is OSX + Linux is like 5% of the desktop OS. No matter how awesome Edge team made it, 1-2% more users will do VERY VERY little compared to the 50% of users they have lost on desktop machines in the past 5 years. They would be absolutely insane to even spend 1 money on adding new OSX users when Windows users (who get their app for FREE and with NO WORK) are leaving left and right. Gotta fix the bleeding before you worry about the lipstick.
    - kyriakos 10y ago
      You're forgetting Mobile. Using Chrome on android and Windows gives you the benefit of shared accounts, shared passwords, bookmarks and history.

flukus 10y ago

Google and chrome are the biggest threat we have to the open internet at the moment.

corv 10y ago
Agreed. I don't understand why there are still memes against Internet Explorer floating around. Edge is not the problem.
- jazoom 10y ago
  As a web developer I'd rather develop for Chrome than IE/Edge. It's pretty much just that simple.
  - svl 10y ago
    That is exactly the attitude web developers had toward the IE/Netscape situation around the year 2000. I think that as web developers we have the responsibility to consider the health of the entire ecosystem, as well as long term consequences. If not us, then who?
    - icebraining 10y ago
      It hardly matters; the Edge teams said that any differences in behaviour compared to Webkit are bugs[1], so they've given up their position as an alternative. [1] https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/06/17/building-a-more-interoperable-web-with-microsoft-edge/ https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/06/17/building-a-mo...
    - jazoom 10y ago
      Once Safari and Edge stop giving me headaches I might be more sympathetic to their cause. We still have new browsers popping up, like Brave and Vivaldi. We still have Firefox, which is decent. I don't understand what your concern is in this context.
      - 10y ago

gushie 10y ago

I tried using Edge, but just get a "This app can't open" message. I'm sure I could fix it if I wanted to but it's easier to just run Chrome.

astannard 10y ago

I just dont like the browser, the things I dont like are: - the search / address box are not obviously that until you click on it - the window bar area to click on and drag the window around is small and not obvious Not major things but it makes it less intuitive to use than chrome in my opinion.

gcp 10y ago

Does this mean we'll get even more notifications on Windows 10?