5 ms·

When I hear Internet explorer I don't hear about the monopoly Internet explorer 6, I hear about the Internet explorer 11 that had to be supported for years and

When I hear Internet explorer I don't hear about the monopoly Internet explorer 6, I hear about the Internet explorer 11 that had to be supported for years and constantly just had to be different from everything else in a way that was frustrating and infuriating whenever you were trying to develop a product. Safari does not have the monopoly status, Chrome has that, but safari does have the IE 11 like constant fighting when you have to support it. Also Safari has monopoly status for everyone using an iPhone. The people on iPhone simply can't pick another browser, because Apple won't let them.

laserdancepony 4y ago
Yes, we could just all use Chrome and stop competing. That would be far easier for everyone.
- bioemerl 4y ago
  I mean, relative to having to support safari, yeah, as much as I hate to say it, it's preferable. Firefox is the browser I want to see be the competition.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    > Firefox is the browser I want to see be the competition. Extremely unlikely unfortunately unless the planets align and Google ceases all promotion of Chrome and Mozilla dramatically improves their own promotion game. Firefox would probably need more tangible reasons for people to switch too, because realistically the masses aren't going to care about the privacy or marketshare angles.
    - newaccount74 4y ago
      Google keeps showing alerts in their products (eg. Gmail) telling people to download Chrome. I don't see how Mozilla could "improve their promotion game" to stand up to that.
      - bioemerl 4y ago
        Pipe dream, but Firefox could be installed by default on iOS devices and Apple could invest a lot of money into Mozilla as a partnership.
      - kitsunesoba 4y ago
        Mozilla can't stand up to that, which is why I mentioned that Google would need to cease all promotion of chrome (including cross-promotions in other Google products). But that alone wouldn't suffice. From what I've seen of Mozilla's efforts to promote Firefox, they don't have any idea of how to appeal to the broader audience, or really any audience beyond the privacy-conscious. That Firefox allows better control of one's data is great but it's not nearly enough to carry most people past the friction point of switching browsers. For that you need things like major advantages in battery life and features that fix common web browsing annoyances.
- realusername 4y ago
  Is Safari really competing anyways? They don't need to do any effort being bundled and it's very visible
tomxor 4y ago
> but safari does have the IE 11 like constant fighting when you have to support it. Yes, and is also very IE like in that it's not evergreen, various iOS devices stuck on specific revisions that Apple has left in various states of broken.
xcombelle 4y ago
>Also Safari has monopoly status for everyone using an iPhone. The people on iPhone simply can't pick another browser, because Apple won't let them. i have an iphone with safari, firefox, firefox focus and chrome, ...
- bioemerl 4y ago
  Yes, but Firefox focus is Safari. Chrome is safari. iPhones aren't allowed to have web browsers that aren't running Safari on the back end. They can have different names, different UIs, but at the end of the day it's the same browser.
- atomicnumber3 4y ago
  And all of those are using the Safari rendering/layout engine.
  - tomxor 4y ago
    And JS engine, the whole thing is basically safari with a different URL bar and ancillary stuff like bookmark syncing. As far as the code is concerned it's 100% Safari. I don't know why non iOS browser play the stupid pseudo support game with Apple, it just makes it confusing for users like the parent comment... playing into Apple's hand, helping them pretend that it's actually a fair ecosystem with choices.
    - kitsunesoba 4y ago
      > I don't know why non iOS browser play the stupid pseudo support game with Apple, it just makes it confusing for users like the parent comment... That's easy. Users want their bookmarks, history, passwords, etc synced across devices, and so if there's no Chrome, Firefox, Edge etc for iOS to accomplish that on iPhone/iPad, people who have multiple Apple devices would likely switch to Safari and those users would be lost. Additionally, in the case of Google and Microsoft, they'd be opting out of those sweet, sweet streams of user data if they had no iOS presence. And so, those browsers exist, just built around WebKit instead of Blink/Gecko.
- 4y ago

laserdancepony 4y ago

Yes, we could just all use Chrome and stop competing. That would be far easier for everyone.

bioemerl 4y ago
I mean, relative to having to support safari, yeah, as much as I hate to say it, it's preferable. Firefox is the browser I want to see be the competition.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  > Firefox is the browser I want to see be the competition. Extremely unlikely unfortunately unless the planets align and Google ceases all promotion of Chrome and Mozilla dramatically improves their own promotion game. Firefox would probably need more tangible reasons for people to switch too, because realistically the masses aren't going to care about the privacy or marketshare angles.
  - newaccount74 4y ago
    Google keeps showing alerts in their products (eg. Gmail) telling people to download Chrome. I don't see how Mozilla could "improve their promotion game" to stand up to that.
    - bioemerl 4y ago
      Pipe dream, but Firefox could be installed by default on iOS devices and Apple could invest a lot of money into Mozilla as a partnership.
    - kitsunesoba 4y ago
      Mozilla can't stand up to that, which is why I mentioned that Google would need to cease all promotion of chrome (including cross-promotions in other Google products). But that alone wouldn't suffice. From what I've seen of Mozilla's efforts to promote Firefox, they don't have any idea of how to appeal to the broader audience, or really any audience beyond the privacy-conscious. That Firefox allows better control of one's data is great but it's not nearly enough to carry most people past the friction point of switching browsers. For that you need things like major advantages in battery life and features that fix common web browsing annoyances.
realusername 4y ago
Is Safari really competing anyways? They don't need to do any effort being bundled and it's very visible

tomxor 4y ago

> but safari does have the IE 11 like constant fighting when you have to support it. Yes, and is also very IE like in that it's not evergreen, various iOS devices stuck on specific revisions that Apple has left in various states of broken.

xcombelle 4y ago

>Also Safari has monopoly status for everyone using an iPhone. The people on iPhone simply can't pick another browser, because Apple won't let them. i have an iphone with safari, firefox, firefox focus and chrome, ...

bioemerl 4y ago
Yes, but Firefox focus is Safari. Chrome is safari. iPhones aren't allowed to have web browsers that aren't running Safari on the back end. They can have different names, different UIs, but at the end of the day it's the same browser.
atomicnumber3 4y ago
And all of those are using the Safari rendering/layout engine.
- tomxor 4y ago
  And JS engine, the whole thing is basically safari with a different URL bar and ancillary stuff like bookmark syncing. As far as the code is concerned it's 100% Safari. I don't know why non iOS browser play the stupid pseudo support game with Apple, it just makes it confusing for users like the parent comment... playing into Apple's hand, helping them pretend that it's actually a fair ecosystem with choices.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    > I don't know why non iOS browser play the stupid pseudo support game with Apple, it just makes it confusing for users like the parent comment... That's easy. Users want their bookmarks, history, passwords, etc synced across devices, and so if there's no Chrome, Firefox, Edge etc for iOS to accomplish that on iPhone/iPad, people who have multiple Apple devices would likely switch to Safari and those users would be lost. Additionally, in the case of Google and Microsoft, they'd be opting out of those sweet, sweet streams of user data if they had no iOS presence. And so, those browsers exist, just built around WebKit instead of Blink/Gecko.
4y ago