5 ms·

>There is zero incentive for Chromium forks, let alone any other browser vendor, to implement/leave-in this technology. Chrome has a 60-70% market share on its

by luke2m 6y ago

>There is zero incentive for Chromium forks, let alone any other browser vendor, to implement/leave-in this technology. Chrome has a 60-70% market share on its own. Most people don’t even know the difference between “the internet” “the www” and “chrome” So, there is zero incentive for the 30% of non-chrome browsers, but most of the people who don’t use adblockers anyway will be sucked into this.

type0 6y ago
Correctemento, for non technical users Chrome is the window to the internet (it used to be Internet Explorer).
- Aachen 6y ago
  Why'd they go out and download another browser if they don't understand the concept of a browser? Only Android comes with the Google browser as default browser as far as I know. I think whatever the setupper of the computer dictates whatever Internet is, and secondarily the OS vendor if the new user doesn't have a tech friend. I don't think Chrome is somehow == Internet for these people specifically. (Personally I call the shortcut "Internet" so it's consistent across devices and they don't have to recognize Lightning on their phone and Firefox on their laptop.) The Google homepage on the other hand...
  - devenblake 6y ago
    Old folks don't download Chrome, their sucker children do. Those who are too frail to lift the koolaid cup to their mouths shall be aided by their brethren. But also Chrome isn't super hard to install anyway and the dark patterns "help" with the process. Go on Google.com with MS Edge and it'll tell you Chrome will give you a faster, more betterer Internet. It must be pretty convincing to hear that from the de facto arbiter of the world wide web and all you have to do is follow the pretty blue buttons. I was able to install Roblox when I was 10 with less guidance.
    - luke2m 6y ago
      Yeah. If I open Google docs with Gnome Epiphany, I get a message that says IE is no longer supported. IE? And until recently, Vivaldi had all sorts of issues on google websites, even though it’s chromium. https://vivaldi.com/blog/user-agent-changes/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/user-agent-changes/
      - unreal6 6y ago
        The shade in that blog post is immense. > We also often encounter websites that block the exact string “Vivaldi”, with no contact or warning to us. This is particularly problematic when the larger technology behemoths (some of whom we directly compete with in the browser space) do this
    - jamesrr39 6y ago
      To be fair, Edge is also "pushed onto" people, being a default install in Windows. Not saying it's right how Chrome is pushed though. IMO, ideally there would be regulation requiring Windows to offer a fair choice of browser downloads (none preinstalled) when you set up the computer, and google wouldn't pull it's "faster, better browser" thing when visiting their search site.
  - type0 6y ago
    > The Google homepage on the other hand... The Google homepage for years said that web users should install Chrome and now almost everyone believes it.
  - alerighi 6y ago
    Only Chrome on Android alone accounts for a big percentage of web traffic. Android is the most used mobile operating system, and nowadays there are more users that browse with a mobile device than users that use a PC. Beside that, a lot of people is induced by Google to install Chrome. A lot of Google services doesn't work so well in browsers that are not Chrome. One of them is Google Meet, that is used in my country by a lot of schools. This is of course by design, there are no reasons Google couldn't make a software that works in all browsers.
  - celsoazevedo 6y ago
    Most Chrome users didn't actually install it. That's the case on desktops/laptops, but not on mobile, which is the segment that bought a lot of new people to the internet in the past few years. Android is the most popular mobile OS (+70% of market share[0]) and most Android phones sold outside China come Google Apps/Chrome pre-installed. That's a lot of Chrome installations. And now Chromebooks are selling like hot cakes (30M in 2020[1], a huge increase mostly because of the pandemic) and Chrome is the default browser there too. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Mobile_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste... [1] https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/02/01/chromebooks-continued-to-sell-like-hotcakes-in-q4-2020/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/02/01/chromebooks-continu...
  - baud147258 6y ago
    In addition to the various Google pages telling the user to install Chrome, it's also sometime bundled in the installer of other free (as in beer) software, with the default option installing chrome and setting it as default web browser. And chrome OS come bundled with chrome too.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
TechBro8615 6y ago
It took ~ ten days to convince my family to move from IE to Firefox. I was about 11 years old at the time. People do not have strong attachments to their web browser. If you show them a viable alternative with tangible benefits, they might switch to it.
- bootlooped 6y ago
  The other day I got a message from a website something like "this site is no longer supported on Internet Explorer, please try Chrome for best experience". I was there using Firefox.
  - eqvinox 6y ago
    What website was that? I haven't seen such a f*ckup in ages. (Firefox user here.)
    - LegitShady 6y ago
      I got that apartment hunting, and there was a 3d tour. The page worked fine on firefox (even with ublock running) but it still had that message.
      - Jonnax 6y ago
        There's an option to report an incompatible site in Firefox. They have a list of sites which user agent sniff for Chrome but work perfectly fine in Firefox. For those sites they add a rule to pretend to be chrome.
- pradn 6y ago
  That was before bookmark and passwords sync, which now act as significant moats. You used to be able to import bookmarks from another browser, but you can't do that with passwords.
  - vlovich123 6y ago
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>Most people don’t even know the difference between “the internet” “the www” and “chrome” I mean it used to be that most people didn't know the difference between IE and the internet, and some time in the last ten years I guess it changed to Chrome instead of IE. Now of course there have been more people coming on to the web during that time as well, but I have to think that there is a significant number of people who by this time must have some idea that the browser itself is not the internet. And I don't use adblockers, but I don't use chrome either.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  > I mean it used to be that most people didn't know the difference between IE and the internet, and some time in the last ten years I guess it changed to Chrome instead of IE. Right and there was a reason for that. IE's monopoly didn't fall from the sky. Netscape was flying high and they decided to rewrite the whole browser while IE kept adding features. The end result was that yes, Firefox was born, but its market share collapsed. Now you have a lot of browsers deciding that the most important thing they can do is remove features and break websites. Maybe those features aren't very good from a privacy point of view, but when the other guy's browser works and yours doesn't, that's not a recipe for gaining market share. Chrome is the other guy, and unlike Safari which is disabling cookies right and left and refusing to load resources, Chrome is willing to do it and sites work with Chrome. So in that dynamic, there is little reason to think that Chrome is going to lose market share to browsers whose main raison d'etre is that they will refuse to load/send resources. If it wasn't for iOS banning non-safari engines, Chrome's market share would be much higher, which is pretty sad given that it's become so bloated. But users care more about stuff working.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    yeah, I'm just arguing that the statement that most users don't know there is a difference between Chrome and the internet seems unlikely to me.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    Is this really what happened? From memory it looked more like MS bundled their browser with the OS, and back in the day discoverability of software was practically zero, so MS just sort of won through inertia. Mozilla did start writing firebird (phoenix?) which then became firefox, but I think by then MS already had the de facto monopoly. I may be misremembering history there of course...

by luke2m 6y ago

type0 6y ago

Correctemento, for non technical users Chrome is the window to the internet (it used to be Internet Explorer).

Aachen 6y ago
Why'd they go out and download another browser if they don't understand the concept of a browser? Only Android comes with the Google browser as default browser as far as I know. I think whatever the setupper of the computer dictates whatever Internet is, and secondarily the OS vendor if the new user doesn't have a tech friend. I don't think Chrome is somehow == Internet for these people specifically. (Personally I call the shortcut "Internet" so it's consistent across devices and they don't have to recognize Lightning on their phone and Firefox on their laptop.) The Google homepage on the other hand...
- devenblake 6y ago
  Old folks don't download Chrome, their sucker children do. Those who are too frail to lift the koolaid cup to their mouths shall be aided by their brethren. But also Chrome isn't super hard to install anyway and the dark patterns "help" with the process. Go on Google.com with MS Edge and it'll tell you Chrome will give you a faster, more betterer Internet. It must be pretty convincing to hear that from the de facto arbiter of the world wide web and all you have to do is follow the pretty blue buttons. I was able to install Roblox when I was 10 with less guidance.
  - luke2m 6y ago
    Yeah. If I open Google docs with Gnome Epiphany, I get a message that says IE is no longer supported. IE? And until recently, Vivaldi had all sorts of issues on google websites, even though it’s chromium. https://vivaldi.com/blog/user-agent-changes/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/user-agent-changes/
    - unreal6 6y ago
      The shade in that blog post is immense. > We also often encounter websites that block the exact string “Vivaldi”, with no contact or warning to us. This is particularly problematic when the larger technology behemoths (some of whom we directly compete with in the browser space) do this
  - jamesrr39 6y ago
    To be fair, Edge is also "pushed onto" people, being a default install in Windows. Not saying it's right how Chrome is pushed though. IMO, ideally there would be regulation requiring Windows to offer a fair choice of browser downloads (none preinstalled) when you set up the computer, and google wouldn't pull it's "faster, better browser" thing when visiting their search site.
- type0 6y ago
  > The Google homepage on the other hand... The Google homepage for years said that web users should install Chrome and now almost everyone believes it.
- alerighi 6y ago
  Only Chrome on Android alone accounts for a big percentage of web traffic. Android is the most used mobile operating system, and nowadays there are more users that browse with a mobile device than users that use a PC. Beside that, a lot of people is induced by Google to install Chrome. A lot of Google services doesn't work so well in browsers that are not Chrome. One of them is Google Meet, that is used in my country by a lot of schools. This is of course by design, there are no reasons Google couldn't make a software that works in all browsers.
- celsoazevedo 6y ago
  Most Chrome users didn't actually install it. That's the case on desktops/laptops, but not on mobile, which is the segment that bought a lot of new people to the internet in the past few years. Android is the most popular mobile OS (+70% of market share[0]) and most Android phones sold outside China come Google Apps/Chrome pre-installed. That's a lot of Chrome installations. And now Chromebooks are selling like hot cakes (30M in 2020[1], a huge increase mostly because of the pandemic) and Chrome is the default browser there too. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Mobile_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste... [1] https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/02/01/chromebooks-continued-to-sell-like-hotcakes-in-q4-2020/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/02/01/chromebooks-continu...
- baud147258 6y ago
  In addition to the various Google pages telling the user to install Chrome, it's also sometime bundled in the installer of other free (as in beer) software, with the default option installing chrome and setting it as default web browser. And chrome OS come bundled with chrome too.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

TechBro8615 6y ago

It took ~ ten days to convince my family to move from IE to Firefox. I was about 11 years old at the time. People do not have strong attachments to their web browser. If you show them a viable alternative with tangible benefits, they might switch to it.

bootlooped 6y ago
The other day I got a message from a website something like "this site is no longer supported on Internet Explorer, please try Chrome for best experience". I was there using Firefox.
- eqvinox 6y ago
  What website was that? I haven't seen such a f*ckup in ages. (Firefox user here.)
  - LegitShady 6y ago
    I got that apartment hunting, and there was a 3d tour. The page worked fine on firefox (even with ublock running) but it still had that message.
    - Jonnax 6y ago
      There's an option to report an incompatible site in Firefox. They have a list of sites which user agent sniff for Chrome but work perfectly fine in Firefox. For those sites they add a rule to pretend to be chrome.
pradn 6y ago
That was before bookmark and passwords sync, which now act as significant moats. You used to be able to import bookmarks from another browser, but you can't do that with passwords.
- vlovich123 6y ago

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

>Most people don’t even know the difference between “the internet” “the www” and “chrome” I mean it used to be that most people didn't know the difference between IE and the internet, and some time in the last ten years I guess it changed to Chrome instead of IE. Now of course there have been more people coming on to the web during that time as well, but I have to think that there is a significant number of people who by this time must have some idea that the browser itself is not the internet. And I don't use adblockers, but I don't use chrome either.

rsj_hn 6y ago
> I mean it used to be that most people didn't know the difference between IE and the internet, and some time in the last ten years I guess it changed to Chrome instead of IE. Right and there was a reason for that. IE's monopoly didn't fall from the sky. Netscape was flying high and they decided to rewrite the whole browser while IE kept adding features. The end result was that yes, Firefox was born, but its market share collapsed. Now you have a lot of browsers deciding that the most important thing they can do is remove features and break websites. Maybe those features aren't very good from a privacy point of view, but when the other guy's browser works and yours doesn't, that's not a recipe for gaining market share. Chrome is the other guy, and unlike Safari which is disabling cookies right and left and refusing to load resources, Chrome is willing to do it and sites work with Chrome. So in that dynamic, there is little reason to think that Chrome is going to lose market share to browsers whose main raison d'etre is that they will refuse to load/send resources. If it wasn't for iOS banning non-safari engines, Chrome's market share would be much higher, which is pretty sad given that it's become so bloated. But users care more about stuff working.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  yeah, I'm just arguing that the statement that most users don't know there is a difference between Chrome and the internet seems unlikely to me.
- Nursie 6y ago
  Is this really what happened? From memory it looked more like MS bundled their browser with the OS, and back in the day discoverability of software was practically zero, so MS just sort of won through inertia. Mozilla did start writing firebird (phoenix?) which then became firefox, but I think by then MS already had the de facto monopoly. I may be misremembering history there of course...