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And that Eich went on to create the privacy focused Brave browser based on Chromium. Yet, these mistakes didn’t really change the downward trajectory. Apple an

And that Eich went on to create the privacy focused Brave browser based on Chromium. Yet, these mistakes didn’t really change the downward trajectory. Apple and Google are the dominant mobile platforms and I can’t see how an independent desktop browser can grow against competent conglomerates.

BrendanEich 6y ago
Brave has grown every month since early beta launch. It can be done, but Firefox has lost share almost every month for a long time. Google distributing and marketing Chrome definitely hurts Firefox, and yet Brave grows. A mystery to discuss another time.
- sradman 6y ago
  > A mystery to discuss another time. The article discusses four strategies and I think your (assuming you are the Brendan Eich) strategy for Brave falls under 3. Technological pessimism, though it needs a better name. You are correct, growth for a desktop browser is possible, I misspoke, but I think the general browser market is a tough nut to crack. Good luck. Your (Brendan Eich's) past and present work is greatly appreciated.
  - BrendanEich 6y ago
    I reject Ian's categories. Brave is not only about "pessimism" and never was. Of course this makes us hard to categorize. Main point is we grew and grow. Firefox shrinks, it's dying. I'm not saying that a bigger browser in decline would be easy to turn around, but Mozilla has not done right by Firefox. I do agree with Ian that loss of Firefox founders hurt. We made brevet promotions and hires who did not hit the heights of hyatt, blake, joehewitt, and bengoodger. This is an oft-told tale, often requiring restart via a different codebase while maintaining the extant one.
- sradman 6y ago
  Since I have your ear, in hindsight do you think the promotion of IndexedDB over SQLite/WebSQL was a good move? I think persistent SQLite is on the verge of returning to the browser via WebAssembly but it needs a proper POSIX-like WASI [1] (WebAssembly System Interface) implementation in the browser. If you are looking for (very) small footholds in the market for Brave, a WASI implementation supporting a SQLite VFS [2] extension has my vote. [1] https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI [2] https://www.sqlite.org/vfs.html https://www.sqlite.org/vfs.html

BrendanEich 6y ago

Brave has grown every month since early beta launch. It can be done, but Firefox has lost share almost every month for a long time. Google distributing and marketing Chrome definitely hurts Firefox, and yet Brave grows. A mystery to discuss another time.

sradman 6y ago
> A mystery to discuss another time. The article discusses four strategies and I think your (assuming you are the Brendan Eich) strategy for Brave falls under 3. Technological pessimism, though it needs a better name. You are correct, growth for a desktop browser is possible, I misspoke, but I think the general browser market is a tough nut to crack. Good luck. Your (Brendan Eich's) past and present work is greatly appreciated.
- BrendanEich 6y ago
  I reject Ian's categories. Brave is not only about "pessimism" and never was. Of course this makes us hard to categorize. Main point is we grew and grow. Firefox shrinks, it's dying. I'm not saying that a bigger browser in decline would be easy to turn around, but Mozilla has not done right by Firefox. I do agree with Ian that loss of Firefox founders hurt. We made brevet promotions and hires who did not hit the heights of hyatt, blake, joehewitt, and bengoodger. This is an oft-told tale, often requiring restart via a different codebase while maintaining the extant one.
sradman 6y ago
Since I have your ear, in hindsight do you think the promotion of IndexedDB over SQLite/WebSQL was a good move? I think persistent SQLite is on the verge of returning to the browser via WebAssembly but it needs a proper POSIX-like WASI [1] (WebAssembly System Interface) implementation in the browser. If you are looking for (very) small footholds in the market for Brave, a WASI implementation supporting a SQLite VFS [2] extension has my vote. [1] https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI [2] https://www.sqlite.org/vfs.html https://www.sqlite.org/vfs.html