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Google really started this though. And they didn’t use anti competitive advertising practices to kill IE, they used them to kill Firefox.

by jrsj 5y ago

cyberge99 5y ago
Firefox is far from dead. I switched back to Firefox from Chrome and it’s been freeing. The extension migration was a pain, but I found almost everything I needed and purged stuff I didn’t.
- asddubs 5y ago
  i'm a firefox user, but firefox is 2,4% from being dead. that's still a lot of people but dangerously close to the kind of numbers where people stop bothering to test if their websites work in it (if they were even doing it to begin with, let's be honest)
  - midoBB 5y ago
    TBH at least in my part of the woods web devs test for Chrome, Safari and mobile Safari.
    - swiley 5y ago
      When I've done web dev the other devs are usually pretty excited to have a Firefox user on the team since they never do any testing with it. Apple killed personal computing and Google/Facebook are killing the open web.
dahart 5y ago
> Google really started this though. I guess you must be young enough to not remember when Google didn’t exist. The anti-trust trial against Microsoft being referred to above began several months before Google was founded. The FTC inquiries into whether MS was abusing a monopoly position with IE began before Sergey Brin even started at Stanford. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
- jrsj 5y ago
  No I remember that, I was referring to the browser war happening now. The old IE days aren’t even relevant to what’s happening now though. Except maybe to show that the only reason Microsoft even had to fight that case in the first place is that they weren’t lobbying the government as much as they “should” have.
  - dahart 5y ago
    > The old IE days aren’t even relevant to what’s happening now though. Why do you say that? MSFT has been engaging in the same behavior for 30 years, trying to force people to use their browser by bundling the browser and default browsing behaviors into the OS. Why does this feel any different than what was happening in 1995? It seems exactly the same to me. Google brought new competition into the middle of an ongoing browser war, and they also do pushy things to nudge people toward their browser. But I don’t see the line you’re trying to draw.
    - jrsj 5y ago
      Because before Google got involved, an independent third party was actually winning & Microsoft had no chance of regaining dominance in that space.
jussij 5y ago
Some people inside Google's where certainly trying to kill off IE: Former Google engineer reveals the secret YouTube plot to kill Internet Explorer 6 https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/4/18529381/google-youtube-internet-explorer-6-kill-plot-engineer https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/4/18529381/google-youtube-in...
- kalleboo 5y ago
  To be fair, by this time IE was up to IE 8 and even Microsoft was trying to kill off IE 6.
skinkestek 5y ago
Google started it this time. As was mentioned the other day: take the time to report Chrome to relevant authorities were you live.

Google really started this though. And they didn’t use anti competitive advertising practices to kill IE, they used them to kill Firefox.

by jrsj 5y ago

Google really started this though. And they didn’t use anti competitive advertising practices to kill IE, they used them to kill Firefox.

cyberge99 5y ago

Firefox is far from dead. I switched back to Firefox from Chrome and it’s been freeing. The extension migration was a pain, but I found almost everything I needed and purged stuff I didn’t.

asddubs 5y ago
i'm a firefox user, but firefox is 2,4% from being dead. that's still a lot of people but dangerously close to the kind of numbers where people stop bothering to test if their websites work in it (if they were even doing it to begin with, let's be honest)
- midoBB 5y ago
  TBH at least in my part of the woods web devs test for Chrome, Safari and mobile Safari.
  - swiley 5y ago
    When I've done web dev the other devs are usually pretty excited to have a Firefox user on the team since they never do any testing with it. Apple killed personal computing and Google/Facebook are killing the open web.

dahart 5y ago

> Google really started this though. I guess you must be young enough to not remember when Google didn’t exist. The anti-trust trial against Microsoft being referred to above began several months before Google was founded. The FTC inquiries into whether MS was abusing a monopoly position with IE began before Sergey Brin even started at Stanford. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...

jrsj 5y ago
No I remember that, I was referring to the browser war happening now. The old IE days aren’t even relevant to what’s happening now though. Except maybe to show that the only reason Microsoft even had to fight that case in the first place is that they weren’t lobbying the government as much as they “should” have.
- dahart 5y ago
  > The old IE days aren’t even relevant to what’s happening now though. Why do you say that? MSFT has been engaging in the same behavior for 30 years, trying to force people to use their browser by bundling the browser and default browsing behaviors into the OS. Why does this feel any different than what was happening in 1995? It seems exactly the same to me. Google brought new competition into the middle of an ongoing browser war, and they also do pushy things to nudge people toward their browser. But I don’t see the line you’re trying to draw.
  - jrsj 5y ago
    Because before Google got involved, an independent third party was actually winning & Microsoft had no chance of regaining dominance in that space.

jussij 5y ago

Some people inside Google's where certainly trying to kill off IE: Former Google engineer reveals the secret YouTube plot to kill Internet Explorer 6 https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/4/18529381/google-youtube-internet-explorer-6-kill-plot-engineer https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/4/18529381/google-youtube-in...

kalleboo 5y ago
To be fair, by this time IE was up to IE 8 and even Microsoft was trying to kill off IE 6.

skinkestek 5y ago

Google started it this time. As was mentioned the other day: take the time to report Chrome to relevant authorities were you live.