4 ms·

Still waiting for investigators to look into Chrome. In 2009 we were finally getting rid of IE and the web browser market was a healthy ecosystem with lots and

Still waiting for investigators to look into Chrome. In 2009 we were finally getting rid of IE and the web browser market was a healthy ecosystem with lots and lots of innovation happening. Today we are soon back on a browser monoculture with the owner of the most popular product being a company that has enormous interest in killing certain parts of the ecosystem and also has a long history of killing of their own products. How did it happen? In my opinion: massive abuse of power in two other markets (search and ads) to push their way into browsers as well. (Well, I'm feeling I might have been too generous above: I could add 2 more - video and office tools - by pointing how they selectively make Google Docs and YouTube perform worse in Firefox, being so brazen about it that just changing the headers so that Firefox identifies itself as Chrome makes the problems go away.)

diggan 5y ago
Yeah, reminds me when Google purposefully blocked Firefox from accessing Inbox. Changing the user-agent revealed that they did that for no other purpose than "performance wasn't what we wanted" while the application worked fine as it was, proved by just changing the user-agent. They also let people use other applications that are slow in Firefox, like Google Photos, but somehow Inbox was different. Gist: https://gist.github.com/VictorB/1d0f4ee6dc5ec0d6646e https://gist.github.com/VictorB/1d0f4ee6dc5ec0d6646e HN comments at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8606879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8606879
- eitland 5y ago
  Thanks! I've added it to my collection. I called authorities again earlier this week and they promised to get back to me if they need more evidence.
- dlubarov 5y ago
  If you believe Google blocked Firefox for competitive reasons, how would you explain - The Google engineer's explanation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498) - do you think he was just plain lying? - The Firefox performance bug he mentioned (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963). Do you think Google engineers went out of their way to search for new performance bugs in Firefox, then figure out how to introduce those bugs in Inbox's code? - If Google wanted to use Inbox support to hurt competitors, why would they invest engineering resources in making an Inbox app for iOS? Considering that Android vs iOS competition has much more impact on Google's business than Chrome vs Firefox competition (e.g. see how much Google pays to be the default iOS search provider).
  - diggan 5y ago
    I believe that once you've decided to be able to justify something, you can come up with loads of reason that justifies that course of action.
moonchrome 5y ago
Safari/WebKit on iOS is a far worse offender. Part of the reason you can't escape the app store tax is because WebKit intentionally gimps webapps. Even Microsoft wasn't this dirty with IE, you could always install other browsers.
- nojito 5y ago
  Good luck trying to win a monopoly argument on an OS without a majority marketshare.
- eitland 5y ago
  I hear this a lot. I'll listen - when Safari has anyone near the marketshare across all mobile devices as Chrome has on desktop and mobile. - Apple has spent billions on promoting it - has intentionally gimped several top ten web properties for other browsers until then this is a problem for iOS users, including me, not an internet problem. I get it, Safari is annoying, but lets not compare Apple fleecing their own users (including me) with Google trying to finish off what Microsoft failed to: to kill the open web.
- judge2020 5y ago
  I mean, this won’t work in court since being forced to use WebKit isn’t unique - it’s just a technical requirement to developing on iOS. Just as you’re forced to use specific Apple APIs to access sensor data or draw stuff to the screen, you’re forced to use a specific APIs to run JavaScript code.
  - the8472 5y ago
    > it’s just a technical requirement to developing on iOS It's not a technical requirement. It's purely policy. Nothing but policy stops others from compiling their own runtimes for iOS. Sensors are different, you need to access the hardware. Browsers are just general purpose software.
- cute_boi 5y ago
  There is one good aspect of safari. Because of fear of loosing ios customer many website still works and doesn't shouts at you "This website only works on chrome". And Microsoft is worst company than apple in browser till today. Their product Skype doesn't even work on Firefox. And in macos you can easily switch firefox but in win11 good luck.
sershe 5y ago
Simple product (almost everyone wants more or less the same things and/or things are hard to compare, like security) and zero cost of switching is how it happened. It is expected that it would produce this distribution. I've started on Firefox before it was Firefox (2003?), then switched to Chrome when Firefox became slow, then switched back to Firefox when something annoyed me about Chrome (I don't even recall what), then switched to Firefox when I wanted more customization (how do I still live without custom tab colors? sigh), then switched to Chrome again because Firefox started to clamp down on extensions/customization and also it was kinda slow again. As far as I can tell, Firefox is currently in really bad shape... but I would switch instantly if I thought it was better. Google makes the best browser (IMO/so far/for an average user). There only compelling reason for an average user to use a different browser is lack of information.

diggan 5y ago

Yeah, reminds me when Google purposefully blocked Firefox from accessing Inbox. Changing the user-agent revealed that they did that for no other purpose than "performance wasn't what we wanted" while the application worked fine as it was, proved by just changing the user-agent. They also let people use other applications that are slow in Firefox, like Google Photos, but somehow Inbox was different. Gist: https://gist.github.com/VictorB/1d0f4ee6dc5ec0d6646e https://gist.github.com/VictorB/1d0f4ee6dc5ec0d6646e HN comments at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8606879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8606879

eitland 5y ago
Thanks! I've added it to my collection. I called authorities again earlier this week and they promised to get back to me if they need more evidence.
dlubarov 5y ago
If you believe Google blocked Firefox for competitive reasons, how would you explain - The Google engineer's explanation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495498) - do you think he was just plain lying? - The Firefox performance bug he mentioned (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1087963). Do you think Google engineers went out of their way to search for new performance bugs in Firefox, then figure out how to introduce those bugs in Inbox's code? - If Google wanted to use Inbox support to hurt competitors, why would they invest engineering resources in making an Inbox app for iOS? Considering that Android vs iOS competition has much more impact on Google's business than Chrome vs Firefox competition (e.g. see how much Google pays to be the default iOS search provider).
- diggan 5y ago
  I believe that once you've decided to be able to justify something, you can come up with loads of reason that justifies that course of action.

moonchrome 5y ago

Safari/WebKit on iOS is a far worse offender. Part of the reason you can't escape the app store tax is because WebKit intentionally gimps webapps. Even Microsoft wasn't this dirty with IE, you could always install other browsers.

nojito 5y ago
Good luck trying to win a monopoly argument on an OS without a majority marketshare.
eitland 5y ago
I hear this a lot. I'll listen - when Safari has anyone near the marketshare across all mobile devices as Chrome has on desktop and mobile. - Apple has spent billions on promoting it - has intentionally gimped several top ten web properties for other browsers until then this is a problem for iOS users, including me, not an internet problem. I get it, Safari is annoying, but lets not compare Apple fleecing their own users (including me) with Google trying to finish off what Microsoft failed to: to kill the open web.
judge2020 5y ago
I mean, this won’t work in court since being forced to use WebKit isn’t unique - it’s just a technical requirement to developing on iOS. Just as you’re forced to use specific Apple APIs to access sensor data or draw stuff to the screen, you’re forced to use a specific APIs to run JavaScript code.
- the8472 5y ago
  > it’s just a technical requirement to developing on iOS It's not a technical requirement. It's purely policy. Nothing but policy stops others from compiling their own runtimes for iOS. Sensors are different, you need to access the hardware. Browsers are just general purpose software.
cute_boi 5y ago
There is one good aspect of safari. Because of fear of loosing ios customer many website still works and doesn't shouts at you "This website only works on chrome". And Microsoft is worst company than apple in browser till today. Their product Skype doesn't even work on Firefox. And in macos you can easily switch firefox but in win11 good luck.

sershe 5y ago

Simple product (almost everyone wants more or less the same things and/or things are hard to compare, like security) and zero cost of switching is how it happened. It is expected that it would produce this distribution. I've started on Firefox before it was Firefox (2003?), then switched to Chrome when Firefox became slow, then switched back to Firefox when something annoyed me about Chrome (I don't even recall what), then switched to Firefox when I wanted more customization (how do I still live without custom tab colors? sigh), then switched to Chrome again because Firefox started to clamp down on extensions/customization and also it was kinda slow again. As far as I can tell, Firefox is currently in really bad shape... but I would switch instantly if I thought it was better. Google makes the best browser (IMO/so far/for an average user). There only compelling reason for an average user to use a different browser is lack of information.