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I find posts like this kind of interesting. Chrome gained prominence because it had great performance improvements over the competition -- IE and Firefox. IE in
by Shank 8y ago
I find posts like this kind of interesting. Chrome gained prominence because it had great performance improvements over the competition -- IE and Firefox. IE in particular was dog slow at all times, and Chrome ran everything at least as well and almost always better. Firefox didn't have process isolation when Chrome came onto the scene, and that kind of knocked it for security and stability.
It's not as if people switched just because it had Google branding. Everyone switched because it was quantifiably better. From benchmarks to design, Chrome was a winner, and has enjoyed its success.
Now, Chrome is doing things that could be seen as "IE-like." Manifest v3 -- even with relaxed changes towards ad blocking -- will not necessarily enable uBlock Origin to continue exactly as it does today. The forced user system is another move in the direction of anti-consumer behavior.
I've tried to switch back to the competition. I'm using Firefox right now. Pages render faster and compact mode is great. But Handoff myseteriously doesn't work on my Mac when it does with Chrome (added in Firefox 65). I had to enable U2F support with an about:config flag. I had to turn off the spell checker to fight mysterious input latency in average textboxes.
I'm reluctantly staying because I ultimately like what I see, but there's an undeniable truth somewhere in here. It's really hard for Firefox to match Chrome simply based on resources. Google can drop millions of dollars on a browser -- and few other companies can afford to do that. Certainly not Mozilla.
- TremendousJudge 8y ago>It's not as if people switched just because it had Google branding. Everyone switched because it was quantifiably better. The knowledgeable minority, maybe. _Most_ people switched because Google pushed it like a piece of adware. Bundling it with other software installers, prompting you to use it whenever you use Google search or other products, and bundling it with an OS.
- ng12 8y agoIf that was the deciding factor we'd still be using IE.
- ionised 8y agoNo we wouldn't. Microsoft was legally prevented from doing that, remember? Why Google has been allowed to get away with it I have no idea.
- CharlesColeman 8y ago> Microsoft was legally prevented from doing that, remember? > Why Google has been allowed to get away with it I have no idea. Wasn't Microsoft only legally prevented from doing that due agreements made when they settled their antitrust case? There needs to be another anti-trust case against Google, especially for the cases where it's used its monopoly in search to push its other products like Chrome, since that shouldn't even be controversial under current antitrust interpretations.
- skybrian 8y agoThis probably does explain why a lot of people tried it, but it doesn't explain why they kept on using it. Often, ad campaigns cause churn as people try a product but bounce off of it.
- ionised 8y agoI don't think most average web users do a comparison of browsers. They pick one (or get told to use one) and stick with it because for their use cases, there isn't much differences between the browser anyway.
- skybrian 8y agoThey probably aren't keen observers, but if the browser is slow or confusing and they get annoyed, maybe they wouldn't install it next time? It's not like people are completely oblivious to quality. But we're just comparing impressions and I'd bet there is better data out there.
- gitgud 8y agoMost people I've ever met, have found it to be faster and easier to use. But yes, a lot of older people still use IE because that's the default
- robocat 8y ago> Google can drop millions of dollars on a browser -- and few other companies can afford to do that. Certainly not Mozilla. Mozilla Revenue: US$562.3 million (2017) And personally I don't think it is just money. As a developer, I feel that the whole Chrome dev team are astoundingly competent developers. Mozilla has their bright spots, but overall I feel they struggle to compete technically in some areas.
- PostOnce 8y agoI don't doubt the technical competence at all, I doubt the management. for example, we now have https://screenshots.firefox.com/ https://screenshots.firefox.com/ so that I can store my browser screenshots In The Cloud. The developer hours are going somewhere, to Screenshots, or Pocket integration, or taking away unsigned extensions, or whatever. It's not that the devs can't make something better, it's that management doesn't think that's the best investment of time?
- bscphil 8y agoThey're sunsetting the cloud storage for screenshots, so I would suggest a better description would be that Mozilla management likes to spend time digging holes and refilling them. https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/01/24/clarifying-the-future-of-firefox-screenshots/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/01/24/clarifyin...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]