4 ms·

> their marketshare only ever got as high as 30% You write that like it was a failure. It was HUGE! In the context of the ms monopoly, it was an unbelievable a

by geon 9y ago

> their marketshare only ever got as high as 30% You write that like it was a failure. It was HUGE! In the context of the ms monopoly, it was an unbelievable and largely unmatched success. Secondly, having a third browser overtaking it was not a failure either, but success in the goal of providing viable alternatives to the stagnating ie.

BurningFrog 9y ago
Remember that Netscape started out dominating this market. Maybe the rewrite didn't cause the catastrophic loss of marketshare (I'm going to resist my urge to spend the morning researching this), but it's hard to see it as a great success in that context.
- btilly 9y ago
  Netscape's fall had many causes, but the biggest one was monopoly actions by Microsoft. Microsoft got sued for this, and lost. The fact that Mozilla crawled back to significant marketshare from there was unbelievably impossible. The fact that open source efforts got to the point where the web became usable again on Linux was simply amazing.
  - EdSharkey 9y ago
    Microsoft had checked out of the browser war game in the 2000's, they had won. All of the most important Mozilla improvements in software design, development practice changes, and testing methodologies in Firefox came in response to and after the arrival and ascendance of Chrome, not IE. Mozilla was not destroyed by Microsoft, and Microsoft gave Mozilla ample time and ammunition to be disruptive. I know you want to be positive on Mozilla, I want to too. But the overall program has been kindof a failure in terms of mindshare.
    - dman 9y ago
      Mozilla abandoning the addon ecosystem left very little reason to use firefox over other alternatives.
      - EdSharkey 9y ago
        I think this kind of sourpuss attitude about Mozilla isn't helpful. What they did with addons is about maturing the platform, making it a safer operating environment for non-power users. I believe it's a matter of time and maturity for Mozilla to support 99% of add-on requirements with their more secure, chrome-like, addon system. The fact that vimperator can't be written in today's Firefox, or that it would be a mighty pain to do so right now, is acceptable to me if it means Firefox is less hackable. I've certainly been critical of Mozilla and dislike how the browser has been dumbed-down in many respects over the years in-service of making it an application delivery platform. But, in my opinion, stability and security have to be job #1 for Mozilla.
        dman 9y ago
        It would be great if the old world of XUL/XPCOM was retired after the new way of doing things could cover the same range of use cases. Breaking userspace without lining up alternatives is why users are up in arms.
        EdSharkey 9y ago
        Yes, holding off on e10s transition until feature parity for the most extreme popular plugins + a reasonable amount of time to rewrite would have been the most savvy thing for them to have done.

by geon 9y ago

BurningFrog 9y ago

Remember that Netscape started out dominating this market. Maybe the rewrite didn't cause the catastrophic loss of marketshare (I'm going to resist my urge to spend the morning researching this), but it's hard to see it as a great success in that context.

btilly 9y ago
Netscape's fall had many causes, but the biggest one was monopoly actions by Microsoft. Microsoft got sued for this, and lost. The fact that Mozilla crawled back to significant marketshare from there was unbelievably impossible. The fact that open source efforts got to the point where the web became usable again on Linux was simply amazing.
- EdSharkey 9y ago
  Microsoft had checked out of the browser war game in the 2000's, they had won. All of the most important Mozilla improvements in software design, development practice changes, and testing methodologies in Firefox came in response to and after the arrival and ascendance of Chrome, not IE. Mozilla was not destroyed by Microsoft, and Microsoft gave Mozilla ample time and ammunition to be disruptive. I know you want to be positive on Mozilla, I want to too. But the overall program has been kindof a failure in terms of mindshare.
  - dman 9y ago
    Mozilla abandoning the addon ecosystem left very little reason to use firefox over other alternatives.
    - EdSharkey 9y ago
      I think this kind of sourpuss attitude about Mozilla isn't helpful. What they did with addons is about maturing the platform, making it a safer operating environment for non-power users. I believe it's a matter of time and maturity for Mozilla to support 99% of add-on requirements with their more secure, chrome-like, addon system. The fact that vimperator can't be written in today's Firefox, or that it would be a mighty pain to do so right now, is acceptable to me if it means Firefox is less hackable. I've certainly been critical of Mozilla and dislike how the browser has been dumbed-down in many respects over the years in-service of making it an application delivery platform. But, in my opinion, stability and security have to be job #1 for Mozilla.
      - dman 9y ago
        It would be great if the old world of XUL/XPCOM was retired after the new way of doing things could cover the same range of use cases. Breaking userspace without lining up alternatives is why users are up in arms.
        EdSharkey 9y ago
        Yes, holding off on e10s transition until feature parity for the most extreme popular plugins + a reasonable amount of time to rewrite would have been the most savvy thing for them to have done.