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When Firefox decimated Internet Explorer in the 2000s, it was just... better. And I think Chrome had some fairly obvious gains over Firefox and IE which led it

When Firefox decimated Internet Explorer in the 2000s, it was just... better. And I think Chrome had some fairly obvious gains over Firefox and IE which led it to gain market share. I was an early adopter of Chrome, but that was in the days before Google seemed so sinister... I use Firefox now because I care about privacy, and I'd rather use a browser developed by a non-profit that cares about that as well. But I suspect that's a bit too abstract for most people to care about, at least at this point. Chrome's advantage seems fairly baked in; people aren't going to shift unless there's a decent reason to. I wonder what that reason could be. Can privacy concerns become a sufficient motivator for people to shift browser; or even, thinking a bit bigger, to change the fundamental architecture of the web?

modzu 7y ago
its so obvious that native ad blocking could be that feature. when a non-tech user opens up a browser with ad blocking it blows their mind. they go to youtube and put on a song, and wait! they don't have to reach for the mute first to silence some loud ad? they don't have to wait to click "skip" on the ad? it just works?? the user just wants the content and we can give it to them. imo this would be the step from chrome, which will never implement it because they depend on it. but the web is not ads. the web can survive without ads.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  The web can survive without ads, will corporations let it though?
- sciurus 7y ago
  Firefox has tracking protection enabled by default. Given the current state of the ad ecosystem, this has the side effect of blocking most ads. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-available-with-enhanced-tracking-protection-by-default/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-availab...
  - floatingatoll 7y ago
    Enabled for new users by default. Existing users currently need to go to Preferences and set the cookie setting to “Block tracking” rather than one of the other options to get these benefits.
  - modzu 7y ago
    tracking protection != ad blocking. the side effect is more like it blocks some 'targeted' ads, but it seems disingenuous to say it blocks 'most ads'.
    - sciurus 7y ago
      I'm not trying to be disingenuous. I don't have an ad blocker installed, and except for when I turn tracking protection off because it broke some site's functionality I can't remember the last time I saw an ad.
Vinnl 7y ago
Firefox was a lot better than IE, but decimated is not the right word. I think it had about 25% market share at its peak? Chrome might be better than Firefox for some use cases, but the difference is definitely not as big as it used to be between Firefox and IE. Yet its market share is way higher. Which leads me to think it's not (just) about being better. I'd guess lock-in/cross-product marketing is another major factor.
- jsgo 7y ago
  during Chrome's climb, Firefox was a fairly slow mess and in some ways caused by users having tons of addons enabled at any given time. Firefox was a lot better than IE when Firefox came out (and remained that way even during its slow period), but Chrome was a lot better during its initial rise than both of them too. Firefox is way better from a performance standpoint than it was during Chrome's climb, but Chrome gobbled up all of the "not built into my OS" market share and unless someone is severely for privacy, does it have enough to differentiate to get people to switch? To me, they seem to be very much peers of equal value.
  - jimmaswell 7y ago
    At this point I honestly wish chrome never happened.
    - jsgo 7y ago
      I wish they hadn't maintained dominance as much as they have, but at the same time, IE being a non-standards compliant actor and Chrome at times including non-standard web features have brought out the best in Firefox: with IE, it forced Firefox to become a thing. With Chrome, it forced Firefox to streamline the cruft and become better. Now at least, users have choice of what they deem the "best browser" to be and I honestly don't think they're inherently wrong for feeling that way. If someone uses Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Edge (though with that last one, I feel for them because it doesn't have the best tab recovery when Edge closes unexpectedly), or some derivative of any of the above, I think they're going to be reasonably okay.
jrochkind1 7y ago
Chrome also has a persistent advantage in being able to advertise Chrome on google search results. Which they do, if you access them using a non-Chrome browser, or at least used to... I confess I'm not sure because I still use Chrome. I agree with you about the advantage of "if you're already using it, something has to be a LOT better to get you to switch".
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- littlestymaar 7y ago
  > Chrome also has a persistent advantage in being able to advertise Chrome on google search results. And also on gmail, googlemaps and YouTube… They even paid for ads in the subway here in Paris! They also bundled it with software like Adobe Flash, which made it available on virtually every computer circa 2010… And they ship it as their default browser on Android…
  - jonathankoren 7y ago
    AMP pages that suggest opening an app (eg Reddit) show an “open in browser” that’s Chrome. GSuite pages constant suggest downloading Chrome. 2019 Google has a lot of ads for Google.
    - littlestymaar 7y ago
      Oh, I never realized that the new reddit for mobile was an AMP app. It's the second slowest website I browse regularilyony my phone: so much for the «accelerated» part of AMP …
  - gregknicholson 7y ago
    There's a rule of thumb that says any film advertised on the side of a bus is probably not a very good film. This is probably just me, but whenever I see an advert for a web service on TV or on a billboard (especially for stalwarts like Google or Ebay), I always apply the same logic: their product must be crap if they're having to advertise it the old-fashioned way — it feels desperate and demeaning to the product.

modzu 7y ago

its so obvious that native ad blocking could be that feature. when a non-tech user opens up a browser with ad blocking it blows their mind. they go to youtube and put on a song, and wait! they don't have to reach for the mute first to silence some loud ad? they don't have to wait to click "skip" on the ad? it just works?? the user just wants the content and we can give it to them. imo this would be the step from chrome, which will never implement it because they depend on it. but the web is not ads. the web can survive without ads.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
The web can survive without ads, will corporations let it though?
sciurus 7y ago
Firefox has tracking protection enabled by default. Given the current state of the ad ecosystem, this has the side effect of blocking most ads. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-available-with-enhanced-tracking-protection-by-default/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-availab...
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  Enabled for new users by default. Existing users currently need to go to Preferences and set the cookie setting to “Block tracking” rather than one of the other options to get these benefits.
- modzu 7y ago
  tracking protection != ad blocking. the side effect is more like it blocks some 'targeted' ads, but it seems disingenuous to say it blocks 'most ads'.
  - sciurus 7y ago
    I'm not trying to be disingenuous. I don't have an ad blocker installed, and except for when I turn tracking protection off because it broke some site's functionality I can't remember the last time I saw an ad.

Vinnl 7y ago

Firefox was a lot better than IE, but decimated is not the right word. I think it had about 25% market share at its peak? Chrome might be better than Firefox for some use cases, but the difference is definitely not as big as it used to be between Firefox and IE. Yet its market share is way higher. Which leads me to think it's not (just) about being better. I'd guess lock-in/cross-product marketing is another major factor.

jsgo 7y ago
during Chrome's climb, Firefox was a fairly slow mess and in some ways caused by users having tons of addons enabled at any given time. Firefox was a lot better than IE when Firefox came out (and remained that way even during its slow period), but Chrome was a lot better during its initial rise than both of them too. Firefox is way better from a performance standpoint than it was during Chrome's climb, but Chrome gobbled up all of the "not built into my OS" market share and unless someone is severely for privacy, does it have enough to differentiate to get people to switch? To me, they seem to be very much peers of equal value.
- jimmaswell 7y ago
  At this point I honestly wish chrome never happened.
  - jsgo 7y ago
    I wish they hadn't maintained dominance as much as they have, but at the same time, IE being a non-standards compliant actor and Chrome at times including non-standard web features have brought out the best in Firefox: with IE, it forced Firefox to become a thing. With Chrome, it forced Firefox to streamline the cruft and become better. Now at least, users have choice of what they deem the "best browser" to be and I honestly don't think they're inherently wrong for feeling that way. If someone uses Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Edge (though with that last one, I feel for them because it doesn't have the best tab recovery when Edge closes unexpectedly), or some derivative of any of the above, I think they're going to be reasonably okay.

jrochkind1 7y ago

Chrome also has a persistent advantage in being able to advertise Chrome on google search results. Which they do, if you access them using a non-Chrome browser, or at least used to... I confess I'm not sure because I still use Chrome. I agree with you about the advantage of "if you're already using it, something has to be a LOT better to get you to switch".

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
littlestymaar 7y ago
> Chrome also has a persistent advantage in being able to advertise Chrome on google search results. And also on gmail, googlemaps and YouTube… They even paid for ads in the subway here in Paris! They also bundled it with software like Adobe Flash, which made it available on virtually every computer circa 2010… And they ship it as their default browser on Android…
- jonathankoren 7y ago
  AMP pages that suggest opening an app (eg Reddit) show an “open in browser” that’s Chrome. GSuite pages constant suggest downloading Chrome. 2019 Google has a lot of ads for Google.
  - littlestymaar 7y ago
    Oh, I never realized that the new reddit for mobile was an AMP app. It's the second slowest website I browse regularilyony my phone: so much for the «accelerated» part of AMP …
- gregknicholson 7y ago
  There's a rule of thumb that says any film advertised on the side of a bus is probably not a very good film. This is probably just me, but whenever I see an advert for a web service on TV or on a billboard (especially for stalwarts like Google or Ebay), I always apply the same logic: their product must be crap if they're having to advertise it the old-fashioned way — it feels desperate and demeaning to the product.