11 ms·

A large part of that competence comes from their increased manpower. It's almost funny how many more developers they have. I heard from an ex-Google-intern that

A large part of that competence comes from their increased manpower. It's almost funny how many more developers they have. I heard from an ex-Google-intern that Google has over 1,000 people working on Chrome. Compare that with EdgeHTML's core dev team, which was well under 100 people (really closer to 50 if my memory serves me right).

joshuamorton 7y ago
I don't know if that's true, but chrome encompasses a lot of things that edge didn't (CrOS).
- millstone 7y ago
  To be sure, ChromeOS has a distinct team for the OS, not part of Chrome.
robocat 7y ago
> I heard from an ex-Google-intern that Google has over 1,000 people working on Chrome. And Mozilla (2016): has about 1,200 employees, revenue $520 million. Yet technically not keeping up. > Compare that with EdgeHTML's core dev team, which was well under 100 people Microsoft and Apple may choose to have smaller teams. They also only have to make each release of their browser work on their latest OS release, and they don't release to multiple OS's (Native Chrome is maintained for multiple versions of Android, ChromeOS, Linux, Windows, macOS). And the myth(?) that smaller teams are more productive! Apple and Microsoft are both outrageously rich companies: if they choose not to compete, why should we knock Google?
- glandium 7y ago
  Do you think all Mozilla employees are Engineers working on Firefox?
  - robocat 7y ago
    Of course not. But perhaps they should have been ;-p. In 2010 Firefox's market share peaked[1]. Chrome has spanked Mozilla for a decade and Mozilla haven't effectively competed (to me apparently by choice of their focus). Meanwhile the Chrome team has beaten Mozilla at open source, which should be Mozilla's strength (V8, node.js, Electron, closure compiler, remote debugging, Samsung browser, Edge 76, Chromium, etc etc). The brightest non-browser component to come out of Mozilla to me is rust, which is a tour de force (Mozilla does have some serious technical chops), and as a developer mdn is superb. Mozilla chased multiple dead-ends during that time, perhaps most notably Firefox OS (even though gonk was based on Android? [2]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/media/File:Usage_Share_of_browsers_(updated_August_2018).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m... [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/B2G_OS/Platform/Gonk https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/B2G_OS/Plat...
    - fenwick67 7y ago
      Chrome beating Firefox in marketshare is not a technical problem, it's a marketing problem. Google owns the largest digital advertising platform in the world and controls the most popular consumer OS, it's hard to beat that reach.
      - glandium 7y ago
        See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20038013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20038013
        robocat 7y ago
        Firefox could be collateral damage. Google fought dirty back against Microsoft. Microsoft pulled very dirty tactics to ram Edge down the gullets of Windows users. Google used the same tactics as used by a large percentage of installers on Windows: business as usual? Or Google actually supported Windows 7 users, because Microsoft wouldn't. Maybe Google really needed a browser that worked and was secure on Windows 7 (not Internet explorer). Microsoft owned the APIs to their OS yet Chrome beat them on their own turf - ouch!

joshuamorton 7y ago

I don't know if that's true, but chrome encompasses a lot of things that edge didn't (CrOS).

millstone 7y ago
To be sure, ChromeOS has a distinct team for the OS, not part of Chrome.

robocat 7y ago

> I heard from an ex-Google-intern that Google has over 1,000 people working on Chrome. And Mozilla (2016): has about 1,200 employees, revenue $520 million. Yet technically not keeping up. > Compare that with EdgeHTML's core dev team, which was well under 100 people Microsoft and Apple may choose to have smaller teams. They also only have to make each release of their browser work on their latest OS release, and they don't release to multiple OS's (Native Chrome is maintained for multiple versions of Android, ChromeOS, Linux, Windows, macOS). And the myth(?) that smaller teams are more productive! Apple and Microsoft are both outrageously rich companies: if they choose not to compete, why should we knock Google?

glandium 7y ago
Do you think all Mozilla employees are Engineers working on Firefox?
- robocat 7y ago
  Of course not. But perhaps they should have been ;-p. In 2010 Firefox's market share peaked[1]. Chrome has spanked Mozilla for a decade and Mozilla haven't effectively competed (to me apparently by choice of their focus). Meanwhile the Chrome team has beaten Mozilla at open source, which should be Mozilla's strength (V8, node.js, Electron, closure compiler, remote debugging, Samsung browser, Edge 76, Chromium, etc etc). The brightest non-browser component to come out of Mozilla to me is rust, which is a tour de force (Mozilla does have some serious technical chops), and as a developer mdn is superb. Mozilla chased multiple dead-ends during that time, perhaps most notably Firefox OS (even though gonk was based on Android? [2]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/media/File:Usage_Share_of_browsers_(updated_August_2018).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m... [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/B2G_OS/Platform/Gonk https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/B2G_OS/Plat...
  - fenwick67 7y ago
    Chrome beating Firefox in marketshare is not a technical problem, it's a marketing problem. Google owns the largest digital advertising platform in the world and controls the most popular consumer OS, it's hard to beat that reach.
    - glandium 7y ago
      See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20038013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20038013
      - robocat 7y ago
        Firefox could be collateral damage. Google fought dirty back against Microsoft. Microsoft pulled very dirty tactics to ram Edge down the gullets of Windows users. Google used the same tactics as used by a large percentage of installers on Windows: business as usual? Or Google actually supported Windows 7 users, because Microsoft wouldn't. Maybe Google really needed a browser that worked and was secure on Windows 7 (not Internet explorer). Microsoft owned the APIs to their OS yet Chrome beat them on their own turf - ouch!