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Also Chrome. Chrome was the biggest shocker to many @ Goog. Even as a Noogler, people often sit down in cafeteria and talked about how Chrome got traction and s

Also Chrome. Chrome was the biggest shocker to many @ Goog. Even as a Noogler, people often sit down in cafeteria and talked about how Chrome got traction and so popular only because it got a main spot on Google's homepage; something noone, no company or individual advertiser can ever bid for. If that's not Google's "Microsoft Internet Explorer anti-trust" moment, then nothing is.

ToFab123 8y ago
What is a "noogler"?
- insensible 8y ago
  New Googler.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dmix 8y ago
You're missing the massive point that it was also happened to be far superior to Firefox and IE when it came out... And it held the #1 spot (by far) for nearly a decade while Firefox fumbled around and IE remained IE. It's crazy to say a product only succeeded because Google pushed it hard. Google (and Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) has a LONG list of failed products they pushed hard (Wave, Google Plus, etc). Did it play a role? Sure. But prominent advertising is not the same as forcing hardware manufacturers to pre-install software. Nor does it suddenly make customers want a shitty product they wouldn't otherwise use.
- nojvek 8y ago
  Chrome basically got a fresh start and built on top of existing WebKit codebase with new ideas. They did well with the “second mover advantage” Firefox and IE were riddled with code debt issues so they couldn’t move fast. Chrome was a great example of software written by a company with resources to dominate a huge market segment relatively quickly. I’m guessing Chrome earned Sundar Picchai a lot of good karma within Google to later become CEO.
  - bruinjoe 8y ago
    Excellent points. Chrome has the best development tools. I used the dev tools so much that I just launch Chrome out of habit when I want to browse the web.
    - hackujin 8y ago
      While at the same time they've been stripping out vital features or outright disabling them on mobile. It's almost like gasp they don't care about the users but only their bottom line.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Actually, the biggest thing in Chrome's favor was being an installer pack-in. People still get sometimes Chrome installed on them if they go download Adobe Reader without unchecking the box. (McAfee Security Scan Plus is Adobe's other paid pack-in, you might see that instead, depending on your location.) People seem to vastly forget that a large part of Chrome's dominance of the ordinary user is the fact that installing half a dozen plugins or tools on Windows has or still installs Chrome and sets it as your default browser. When doing PC support for layusers, I've found that: Most people don't know what Chrome is, and don't know the difference between it, Edge, IE, and the malicious Chromium fork they have installed on their PCs. (Side note: May the soulless individuals behind the "WebDiscover Browser" suffer a life of misery and despair as punishment for their crimes.) They end up with Chrome (or a malicious fork thereof) due to a bundle installer.
  - dmix 8y ago
    I don't see how partnering with a few other software companies to distribute software via installers is a bad thing or a sign of monopolistic practices (aka limiting competition and harming customers by forcing them to use a product they wouldn't otherwise)... It's a bit shady to make it 'automatically the default browser'. But that is a problem with the OS. An installer shouldn't be able to make that choice for the user.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
      They fixed this with Windows 10, actually. Which of course, upset people because it defaults people to Edge, and asks people to give Edge a try when they change it.
      - dmix 8y ago
        True, I remember seeing that now on my moms laptop. I remember it was quite aggressive in warning you not to switch away from Edge. Microsoft can never let the marketing people stop having control and ruining their products. They are trying to make it more useable and user friendlier, but it's funny seeing the push back within the product.
- theptip 8y ago
  The GP didn't make the claim that the "product only succeeded because Google pushed it hard". All they said was that Google used their search monopoly to give it a big advantage. Chrome's quality was a necessary, but probably not sufficient condition for it to gain the market traction that it did.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    Exactly, without Search pushing so hard the adoption rate would have been much slower and would have given Mozilla, Apple, and Microsoft time to respond. Firefox has rapidly improved since it's inception and was rapidly stealing IE market share prior to Chrome. Had Chrome not been rammed down people's throats then we might have a more even landscape than we do today.
    - josteink 8y ago
      Search. And Gmail. And YouTube. And every other google-controlled site on the internet. Plus email-SPAM(!!!) about installing Chrome when you signed in to your Google-account on a new computer using a non-Chrome browser. It also used dubious wording: “You need to upgrade your browser. Click here” And paying to have it bundled as a drive-by installation with other software. And Chrome-only websites. And the list just goes on and on. It was spyware tactics + SPAM all over the place. And the sheer amount of it was mind-blowing. Even technical people who explicitly didn’t want Chrome had a hard time avoiding it. Imagine the effect on regular, non-technical users. Saying it was all down to technical merit is just appoligist and delusional. With Chrome’s dominance and semi-monoculture undeniably in place, Google is now using that position to force new things, like subverting open web-standards with DRM. I can’t believe people are so non-chalantly allowing this to happen.
      - ta3434678 8y ago
        Its been a slow boil, and they employ experts to manipulate public opinion (HN fawns all over them still ... articles continually like "Ex-Googlers Do XYZ!". They won't get away with it long term.
- GeekyBear 8y ago
  Also, Google paid to have their browser installed through the installers of other companies software, by default. For instance, by default, the installer for AVG's free antivirus program would install Google Chrome and make it the default browser.
  - dmix 8y ago
    I don't see any problem with doing a few partnerships like these. Even with some major companies. Firefox could easily do the same. It's only a problem when you squeeze out competition by doing exclusive contracts with all major distributors in a particular distribution channel.
    - WorkLifeBalance 8y ago
      But only you can leverage your monopoly on search to know exactly which products are worth having those contracts with.
    - GeekyBear 8y ago
      I'd say that sneaking an install of your product onto people's computers when they are not expecting it is exploiting a dark pattern. However, the point was that Chrome didn't mysteriously gain market share solely based on some sort of technical superiority. Google paid to gain market share with the sorts of clueless users who click next during install wizards without reading anything.
      - joering2 8y ago
        My point was Google didn't pay anything to gain the market share because they advertise Chrome on their frontpage, something neither Firefox, nor IE, nor Opera nor Safari, nor anyone else in that matter could do.
        GeekyBear 8y ago
        From an antitrust law point of view, using your monopoly status in one area as a weapon against the competition in other areas is something that likely gets you in trouble. Although, it helps to remember that in the EU, you don't need nearly as big a market share before their competition law kicks in and places restrictions on your behavior, so things that you can still get away with in the US can be quite illegal in the EU.
- ModernMech 8y ago
  > You're missing the massive point that it was also happened to be far superior to Firefox and IE when it came out I mean, you really could have said the same thing about IE 4 when it came out. It was actually better than Communicator at the time, which was a bloated, unfocused, mess of a browser. It's hard to find news and reviews from 1997 to back me up, but here are a couple accounts I found recollecting their experiences with the browsers: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Netscape-lose-ground-to-IE https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Netscape-lose-ground-to-IE
  - Joeri 8y ago
    I was a www user at the time and that’s how I remember it. IE4 was clearly better than netscape’s comparable offering at the time, and IE5 and IE6 entrenched that lead to the point where I had to switch to IE. Much faster and much better standards support (ironically IE6 had by far the best standards support at the time of its release.)
- codedokode 8y ago
  Google also showed a warning about an unsupported browser when Google Documents were used with other browser like Opera.
  - josteink 8y ago
    Often with a link to download Chrome saying misleading stuff like “Upgrade your browser. Click here”.
- datalist 8y ago
  It had a few new concepts, mainly multi-processes, but "far superior when it came out" is a broad exaggeration. Equally, IE was far superior to Netscape when it came out ;) This is not to say Chrome is (now) the inferior browser but saying their marketing push has nothing to do with its market share is ignoring reality.
  - Jyaif 8y ago
    It had little things like multi-process, omnibox, and something like a 10x faster JS engine than the competition, but the real killer feature was the auto-updating.
    - datalist 8y ago
      It did come with advantages, no doubt, but - as so often - its market share is not necessarily because it tried to push the web further, a large share is simply because of Google's aggressive marketing. To this day Google is pushing their browser if you dare to use their services with Edge.
keerthiko 8y ago
Why is that a shocker? They own google.com and they want to upsell another product, and aren't forcing it upon users or vendors. This seems like normal/standard business practice. Bundling IE with Windows was not the problem, but forcing PC vendors to only sell with Windows installed, and aggressively forcing IE to be the default browser was. On the other hand, building "web" apps that only run on chrome, that was a shocker for me.
- unit91 8y ago
  > On the other hand, building "web" apps that only run on chrome, that was a shocker for me. Wow, I wasn't aware of this. Do you recall any examples?
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    There was a solid half a year where google hangouts does not work on current versions of Firefox. It claims that Firefox support is in development, but the actuality of it is that hangouts was deprecated for hangouts meet, which does support firefox
  - javver 8y ago
    At least the web version of Google Earth is like that.
  - keerthiko 8y ago
    Inbox, hangouts video calls, google earth, off the top of my head, spent 6months+ being chrome-only. H/o video calls over a year (just a few months ago became firefox compatible).
- AlphaSite 8y ago
  It’s literally the definition of leveraging a monopoly to enter a market.
codedokode 8y ago
That is an important point; you might be ten times more talented than Google engineers but you won't get your browser promoted on the on of the most popular internet pages or preinstalled with Android. Google is using its dominance in one area to disrupt competition in other areas. I think that this is something that should not be allowed.
jpalomaki 8y ago
Chrome was the choice of many people who really know their tools. It was fast and put the content on front instead of itself. I don’t think we should dismis doing what customers want and try to find reasons for succes only from marketing. With Chrome Google kind of repeated what they did with search.

ToFab123 8y ago

What is a "noogler"?

insensible 8y ago
New Googler.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

dmix 8y ago

You're missing the massive point that it was also happened to be far superior to Firefox and IE when it came out... And it held the #1 spot (by far) for nearly a decade while Firefox fumbled around and IE remained IE. It's crazy to say a product only succeeded because Google pushed it hard. Google (and Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) has a LONG list of failed products they pushed hard (Wave, Google Plus, etc). Did it play a role? Sure. But prominent advertising is not the same as forcing hardware manufacturers to pre-install software. Nor does it suddenly make customers want a shitty product they wouldn't otherwise use.

nojvek 8y ago
Chrome basically got a fresh start and built on top of existing WebKit codebase with new ideas. They did well with the “second mover advantage” Firefox and IE were riddled with code debt issues so they couldn’t move fast. Chrome was a great example of software written by a company with resources to dominate a huge market segment relatively quickly. I’m guessing Chrome earned Sundar Picchai a lot of good karma within Google to later become CEO.
- bruinjoe 8y ago
  Excellent points. Chrome has the best development tools. I used the dev tools so much that I just launch Chrome out of habit when I want to browse the web.
  - hackujin 8y ago
    While at the same time they've been stripping out vital features or outright disabling them on mobile. It's almost like gasp they don't care about the users but only their bottom line.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Actually, the biggest thing in Chrome's favor was being an installer pack-in. People still get sometimes Chrome installed on them if they go download Adobe Reader without unchecking the box. (McAfee Security Scan Plus is Adobe's other paid pack-in, you might see that instead, depending on your location.) People seem to vastly forget that a large part of Chrome's dominance of the ordinary user is the fact that installing half a dozen plugins or tools on Windows has or still installs Chrome and sets it as your default browser. When doing PC support for layusers, I've found that: Most people don't know what Chrome is, and don't know the difference between it, Edge, IE, and the malicious Chromium fork they have installed on their PCs. (Side note: May the soulless individuals behind the "WebDiscover Browser" suffer a life of misery and despair as punishment for their crimes.) They end up with Chrome (or a malicious fork thereof) due to a bundle installer.
- dmix 8y ago
  I don't see how partnering with a few other software companies to distribute software via installers is a bad thing or a sign of monopolistic practices (aka limiting competition and harming customers by forcing them to use a product they wouldn't otherwise)... It's a bit shady to make it 'automatically the default browser'. But that is a problem with the OS. An installer shouldn't be able to make that choice for the user.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    They fixed this with Windows 10, actually. Which of course, upset people because it defaults people to Edge, and asks people to give Edge a try when they change it.
    - dmix 8y ago
      True, I remember seeing that now on my moms laptop. I remember it was quite aggressive in warning you not to switch away from Edge. Microsoft can never let the marketing people stop having control and ruining their products. They are trying to make it more useable and user friendlier, but it's funny seeing the push back within the product.
theptip 8y ago
The GP didn't make the claim that the "product only succeeded because Google pushed it hard". All they said was that Google used their search monopoly to give it a big advantage. Chrome's quality was a necessary, but probably not sufficient condition for it to gain the market traction that it did.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  Exactly, without Search pushing so hard the adoption rate would have been much slower and would have given Mozilla, Apple, and Microsoft time to respond. Firefox has rapidly improved since it's inception and was rapidly stealing IE market share prior to Chrome. Had Chrome not been rammed down people's throats then we might have a more even landscape than we do today.
  - josteink 8y ago
    Search. And Gmail. And YouTube. And every other google-controlled site on the internet. Plus email-SPAM(!!!) about installing Chrome when you signed in to your Google-account on a new computer using a non-Chrome browser. It also used dubious wording: “You need to upgrade your browser. Click here” And paying to have it bundled as a drive-by installation with other software. And Chrome-only websites. And the list just goes on and on. It was spyware tactics + SPAM all over the place. And the sheer amount of it was mind-blowing. Even technical people who explicitly didn’t want Chrome had a hard time avoiding it. Imagine the effect on regular, non-technical users. Saying it was all down to technical merit is just appoligist and delusional. With Chrome’s dominance and semi-monoculture undeniably in place, Google is now using that position to force new things, like subverting open web-standards with DRM. I can’t believe people are so non-chalantly allowing this to happen.
    - ta3434678 8y ago
      Its been a slow boil, and they employ experts to manipulate public opinion (HN fawns all over them still ... articles continually like "Ex-Googlers Do XYZ!". They won't get away with it long term.
GeekyBear 8y ago
Also, Google paid to have their browser installed through the installers of other companies software, by default. For instance, by default, the installer for AVG's free antivirus program would install Google Chrome and make it the default browser.
- dmix 8y ago
  I don't see any problem with doing a few partnerships like these. Even with some major companies. Firefox could easily do the same. It's only a problem when you squeeze out competition by doing exclusive contracts with all major distributors in a particular distribution channel.
  - WorkLifeBalance 8y ago
    But only you can leverage your monopoly on search to know exactly which products are worth having those contracts with.
  - GeekyBear 8y ago
    I'd say that sneaking an install of your product onto people's computers when they are not expecting it is exploiting a dark pattern. However, the point was that Chrome didn't mysteriously gain market share solely based on some sort of technical superiority. Google paid to gain market share with the sorts of clueless users who click next during install wizards without reading anything.
    - joering2 8y ago
      My point was Google didn't pay anything to gain the market share because they advertise Chrome on their frontpage, something neither Firefox, nor IE, nor Opera nor Safari, nor anyone else in that matter could do.
      - GeekyBear 8y ago
        From an antitrust law point of view, using your monopoly status in one area as a weapon against the competition in other areas is something that likely gets you in trouble. Although, it helps to remember that in the EU, you don't need nearly as big a market share before their competition law kicks in and places restrictions on your behavior, so things that you can still get away with in the US can be quite illegal in the EU.
ModernMech 8y ago
> You're missing the massive point that it was also happened to be far superior to Firefox and IE when it came out I mean, you really could have said the same thing about IE 4 when it came out. It was actually better than Communicator at the time, which was a bloated, unfocused, mess of a browser. It's hard to find news and reviews from 1997 to back me up, but here are a couple accounts I found recollecting their experiences with the browsers: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Netscape-lose-ground-to-IE https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Netscape-lose-ground-to-IE
- Joeri 8y ago
  I was a www user at the time and that’s how I remember it. IE4 was clearly better than netscape’s comparable offering at the time, and IE5 and IE6 entrenched that lead to the point where I had to switch to IE. Much faster and much better standards support (ironically IE6 had by far the best standards support at the time of its release.)
codedokode 8y ago
Google also showed a warning about an unsupported browser when Google Documents were used with other browser like Opera.
- josteink 8y ago
  Often with a link to download Chrome saying misleading stuff like “Upgrade your browser. Click here”.
datalist 8y ago
It had a few new concepts, mainly multi-processes, but "far superior when it came out" is a broad exaggeration. Equally, IE was far superior to Netscape when it came out ;) This is not to say Chrome is (now) the inferior browser but saying their marketing push has nothing to do with its market share is ignoring reality.
- Jyaif 8y ago
  It had little things like multi-process, omnibox, and something like a 10x faster JS engine than the competition, but the real killer feature was the auto-updating.
  - datalist 8y ago
    It did come with advantages, no doubt, but - as so often - its market share is not necessarily because it tried to push the web further, a large share is simply because of Google's aggressive marketing. To this day Google is pushing their browser if you dare to use their services with Edge.

keerthiko 8y ago

Why is that a shocker? They own google.com and they want to upsell another product, and aren't forcing it upon users or vendors. This seems like normal/standard business practice. Bundling IE with Windows was not the problem, but forcing PC vendors to only sell with Windows installed, and aggressively forcing IE to be the default browser was. On the other hand, building "web" apps that only run on chrome, that was a shocker for me.

unit91 8y ago
> On the other hand, building "web" apps that only run on chrome, that was a shocker for me. Wow, I wasn't aware of this. Do you recall any examples?
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  There was a solid half a year where google hangouts does not work on current versions of Firefox. It claims that Firefox support is in development, but the actuality of it is that hangouts was deprecated for hangouts meet, which does support firefox
- javver 8y ago
  At least the web version of Google Earth is like that.
- keerthiko 8y ago
  Inbox, hangouts video calls, google earth, off the top of my head, spent 6months+ being chrome-only. H/o video calls over a year (just a few months ago became firefox compatible).
AlphaSite 8y ago
It’s literally the definition of leveraging a monopoly to enter a market.

codedokode 8y ago

That is an important point; you might be ten times more talented than Google engineers but you won't get your browser promoted on the on of the most popular internet pages or preinstalled with Android. Google is using its dominance in one area to disrupt competition in other areas. I think that this is something that should not be allowed.

jpalomaki 8y ago

Chrome was the choice of many people who really know their tools. It was fast and put the content on front instead of itself. I don’t think we should dismis doing what customers want and try to find reasons for succes only from marketing. With Chrome Google kind of repeated what they did with search.