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This move by Microsoft may probably help Microsoft have Windows users using its browser, but I seriously doubt if it's good for the web. There are people claim

This move by Microsoft may probably help Microsoft have Windows users using its browser, but I seriously doubt if it's good for the web. There are people claiming that Microsoft could easily fork from Chromium, but honestly, do you see that happening in the next few years? Having read that Microsoft's Edge team was a very small one, I don't believe Microsoft will fork Chromium anytime in the next two or three years (no financial incentive, which could be a big motive, to do so)...and that's a long time to keep pushing the Chrome/Chromium way ("what Google wants for the web"). As an aside, I very much liked this article linked within, titled "The ecological impact of browser diversity" by Rachel Nabors. [1] To all those who evangelize Firefox, please also see if you can donate money to Mozilla. It may seem like Mozilla has a lot of money (more than 90% coming from Google for being the default search engine added in the browser), but this is not enough, and could turn to be nothing if Firefox's market share becomes next to nothing and Google decides to pull the plug when the current contract expires. Partnerships with Bing (or other search engines that not many people use) may not bring in as much money to Mozilla. Read about all the work that Mozilla does (aka "not just Firefox") in its "State of Mozilla 2017" annual report. [2] The audited financial report is here. [3] [1]: https://css-tricks.com/the-ecological-impact-of-browser-diversity/ https://css-tricks.com/the-ecological-impact-of-browser-dive... [2]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2017/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2017/ [3]: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-fdn-2017-fs-short-form-final-0927.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-fdn-201...

oooglaaa 8y ago
So the only competitor to Google’s monopoly on web browsers is... funded almost entirely by Google? Yikes
- scarface74 8y ago
  While Safari’s desktop market share is minimal and it really only competes with Chrome directly on Macs. No one is going to use Chrome only features that don’t work on iPhones.
  - gronne 8y ago
    I hope you are right.
    - johnisgood 8y ago
      Why? Apple has been playing the game of vendor lock-in for quite some time now. How does it make the situation any better? Heck, they have changed - and set a nasty precedent - their hardware for this exact purpose.
      - acdha 8y ago
        Large companies usually don’t act with a single voice. The iPhone is what stopped IE’s ability to dictate what the web would work like — not entirely without help but it’s what forced companies to treat support for other browsers as mandatory rather than nice-to-have – and WebKit was a huge win for open source, eventually including Chrome. That doesn’t mean that things like Lightning connectors don’t also happen but in the context of the web Apple has generally been helpful for fighting monoculture since it used to be a huge threat to their continued existence.
        johnisgood 8y ago
        Thanks for your reply! Yes, I can see now how it would be beneficial in this case at least. :)
        johnisgood 8y ago
        By the way, just came across: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/18/11/10/1656225/apple-blocks-linux-from-booting-on-new-hardware-with-t2-security-chip https://apple.slashdot.org/story/18/11/10/1656225/apple-bloc... Ugh.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    > No one is going to use Chrome only features that don’t work on iPhones. Mostly facetious, but who except Americans cares about iOS anymore? Total iPhone market share is down to ~15% of smart phones worldwide. Android has the big lead now and doesn't look like it will relinquish it soon. Chrome only feature, works on ~85% of smart phones today? "Ship it," says the bottom line.
avaer 8y ago
Instead of funding Mozilla, perhaps funding the many non-Blink, non-Gecko browser authors out there would be more impactful? Even if it's indirectly through spreading responsible ownership of standards discussions and components like Skia/ANGLE/etc. Disclaimer: independent browser author, unpaid.
- newscracker 8y ago
  I’d personally favor both — funding Mozilla as well as non-Blink/non-Mozilla browsers. We need stronger contenders for the present (like Mozilla) and stronger contenders for the future (others, assuming they’re still nascent and aren’t on the radar for most people). Though I support Mozilla for various reasons, I see value in supporting smaller competition that could ultimately help everyone (including Mozilla). Please share your project and other independent browsers/engines. It’s been some time I’ve checked this space out (and I do know that I could also go to Wikipedia to get some information on this).
- jancsika 8y ago
  Does your independent browser properly render a page like the following: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues ? There should be a left column wide enough to read the text, and some transient menus which appear when mousing over the links there, and a switch to icon-only left column when you scrunch the window size small enough.
coffekaesque 8y ago
> To all those who evangelize Firefox, please also see if you can donate money to Mozilla As a Firefox user for years I lost all the motivation to donate to Mozilla because of their mixed messages. I would like my money to go to their engineering efforts, to make the best browser in the world. You could guess to what kind of "places" I don't want my money to go to. It's nice to advocate for the free web but in the end if your browser isn't competitive everything else will fall apart. There's a lot of FUD with things like the Mr Robot "ad" (Mozilla wasn't paid for that) but there are legitimate concerns about some of their behavior. It wasn't so long ago that I clicked on anything Mozilla with joy, but now my brain bullshit detector is automatically deployed. I love reading about Servo and anything tech related but that's about it.

oooglaaa 8y ago

So the only competitor to Google’s monopoly on web browsers is... funded almost entirely by Google? Yikes

scarface74 8y ago
While Safari’s desktop market share is minimal and it really only competes with Chrome directly on Macs. No one is going to use Chrome only features that don’t work on iPhones.
- gronne 8y ago
  I hope you are right.
  - johnisgood 8y ago
    Why? Apple has been playing the game of vendor lock-in for quite some time now. How does it make the situation any better? Heck, they have changed - and set a nasty precedent - their hardware for this exact purpose.
    - acdha 8y ago
      Large companies usually don’t act with a single voice. The iPhone is what stopped IE’s ability to dictate what the web would work like — not entirely without help but it’s what forced companies to treat support for other browsers as mandatory rather than nice-to-have – and WebKit was a huge win for open source, eventually including Chrome. That doesn’t mean that things like Lightning connectors don’t also happen but in the context of the web Apple has generally been helpful for fighting monoculture since it used to be a huge threat to their continued existence.
      - johnisgood 8y ago
        Thanks for your reply! Yes, I can see now how it would be beneficial in this case at least. :)
      - johnisgood 8y ago
        By the way, just came across: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/18/11/10/1656225/apple-blocks-linux-from-booting-on-new-hardware-with-t2-security-chip https://apple.slashdot.org/story/18/11/10/1656225/apple-bloc... Ugh.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  > No one is going to use Chrome only features that don’t work on iPhones. Mostly facetious, but who except Americans cares about iOS anymore? Total iPhone market share is down to ~15% of smart phones worldwide. Android has the big lead now and doesn't look like it will relinquish it soon. Chrome only feature, works on ~85% of smart phones today? "Ship it," says the bottom line.

avaer 8y ago

Instead of funding Mozilla, perhaps funding the many non-Blink, non-Gecko browser authors out there would be more impactful? Even if it's indirectly through spreading responsible ownership of standards discussions and components like Skia/ANGLE/etc. Disclaimer: independent browser author, unpaid.

newscracker 8y ago
I’d personally favor both — funding Mozilla as well as non-Blink/non-Mozilla browsers. We need stronger contenders for the present (like Mozilla) and stronger contenders for the future (others, assuming they’re still nascent and aren’t on the radar for most people). Though I support Mozilla for various reasons, I see value in supporting smaller competition that could ultimately help everyone (including Mozilla). Please share your project and other independent browsers/engines. It’s been some time I’ve checked this space out (and I do know that I could also go to Wikipedia to get some information on this).
jancsika 8y ago
Does your independent browser properly render a page like the following: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues ? There should be a left column wide enough to read the text, and some transient menus which appear when mousing over the links there, and a switch to icon-only left column when you scrunch the window size small enough.

coffekaesque 8y ago

> To all those who evangelize Firefox, please also see if you can donate money to Mozilla As a Firefox user for years I lost all the motivation to donate to Mozilla because of their mixed messages. I would like my money to go to their engineering efforts, to make the best browser in the world. You could guess to what kind of "places" I don't want my money to go to. It's nice to advocate for the free web but in the end if your browser isn't competitive everything else will fall apart. There's a lot of FUD with things like the Mr Robot "ad" (Mozilla wasn't paid for that) but there are legitimate concerns about some of their behavior. It wasn't so long ago that I clicked on anything Mozilla with joy, but now my brain bullshit detector is automatically deployed. I love reading about Servo and anything tech related but that's about it.