7 ms·

"massive ad campaigns" is hardly an antitrust matter. Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking.

by veave 3y ago

Jenk 3y ago
I would argue it was better but has since degraded. The pivotal point, IMO, was ~6 years after Google's IPO.
Dalewyn 3y ago
Chrome when it released was faster than Firefox, but it wasn't "better". It ate far more RAM than either Firefox or IE did (and still does), back when RAM capacities were still practically limited, and Chrome was (and is) rendering the internet in Chrome ways much like IE did in Trident ways and Firefox has in Gecko ways. Chrome also had and still has its own UI paradigms, including no title bar, menu bar, nor status bar, and an omnibar instead of an address bar. What really made Chrome the victor was they kept improving things common people care about, particularly in JavaScript and therefore JavaShit execution, while Mozilla got lazy on "winning" the war and Google dollars and IE was too late in getting back into the game.
- Rarebox 3y ago
  Back then I remember switching to Chrome for these reasons: 1. Feeling faster than firefox (still does) 2. Process separation for tabs. Firefox used to crash the whole browser, whereas chrome would crash just a single tab. 3. Shipped with support for Flash and PDFs
  - photonerd 3y ago
    Speed is why I use Safari now. It feels like Chrome did compared to FF back in the day. It’s painful using Chrome by comparison. If it wasn’t for Chromes better dev tools I doubt I’d use it much
    - sznio 3y ago
      Only reason Safari feels fast is that it has avoided implementing features. There's still stuff that's been present in Chrome/Firefox for 10 years, but still doesn't work in Safari. Does Google still show the old search results page design to Safari users? It did that for a long time.
      - photonerd 3y ago
        Frankly, Safari works. If those features slow down the web then that’s a knock on those features. Plus I’ve yet to see a single one of these supposedly “missing” features actually matter in the real world.
    - Version467 3y ago
      May I recommend Orion? It's based on Safaris engine, but imo improves massively on its ui (for example it comes with a fantastic (opt-in) tree-style tab browser). But most importantly it supports chrome and firefox extensions. Most of them do just work out of the box.
      - eitland 3y ago
        Orion is fantastic. I still use Firefox since it is cross browser but if I change to MacBook as my dev machine I might go all in on Orion as well.
      - photonerd 3y ago
        Not gonna lie, a tree-style tab browser sounds like awful UI to me, but… I’m glad you like it. Supporting the insecure bloatware that is Chrome & FF extensions tho? Massive convenience factor, I get it, but… ewwww
  - kevingadd 3y ago
    It's funny how massive the impact of "bundle a bunch of proprietary stuff into our open browser" was on the browser wars. Between H264, MP3, Flash and PDF, Firefox never had a chance.
    - Nathan2055 3y ago
      The problem is that there simply wasn't a better option at the time. Ogg Vorbis was a novelty at best, and it was the only decently widely adopted open source competitor for any of the items listed that was available at the time. HTML5 was only just published when Chrome launched. So Flash was at that point the only option available to show a video in the browser (sure, downloading a RealPlayer file was always an option, but it was clunky, creators didn't like people being able to save stuff locally, and was also not open source). Chrome in fact arguably accelerated the process of getting web video open sourced: Google bought On2 in 2010 to get the rights to VP8 (the only decent H.264 competitor available at that point) so they could immediately open source it. The plan was in fact to remove H.264 from Chrome entirely once VP8/VP9 adoption ramped up[1], but that didn’t end up happening. Flash was integrated into Chrome because people were going to use it anyway, and having Google distribute it at least let them both sandbox it and roll out automatic updates (a massive vector for malware at the time was ads pretending to be Flash updates, which worked because people were just that used to constant Flash security patches, most of which required a full reboot to apply; Chrome fixed both of those issues). Apple are the ones who ultimately dealt the death blow to Flash, and it was really just because Adobe could not optimize it for phone CPUs no matter what they tried (even the few Android releases of Flash that we got were practically unusable). That also further accelerated the adoption of open source HTML5 technologies. PDF is an open source format, and has been since 2008. While I don't know if pressure from Google is what did it, that wouldn’t surprise me. Regardless, the Chrome PDF reader, PDFium, is open source[2] and Mozilla's equivalent project from 2011, PDF.js, is also open source.[3] Both of these projects replaced the distinctly closed source Adobe Reader plugin that was formerly mandatory for viewing PDFs in the browser. Chrome is directly responsible for eliminating a lot of proprietary software from mainstream use and replacing it with high-quality open source tools. While they've caused problems in other areas of browser development that are worthy of criticism, Chrome's track record when it comes to open sourcing their tech has been very good. [1]: https://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html https://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-i... [2]: https://github.com/chromium/pdfium https://github.com/chromium/pdfium [3]: https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Chrome's crushing advantage is/was perfect Google service support. For a long time Safari has struggled with Google Suite, Youtube support is/was janky on almost every other browser etc. The Edge incident was kind of a perfect illustration of how Google either didn't care or actively threw spikes in rivals' wheels.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  > Chrome was just like [IE6], rendered whatever it wanted. > JavaShit I don't think the increasingly small # of people who still talk this way about the web appreciate how easily this reads as incorrect extremism.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    Chrome's throne is reinforced by the combined factors of websites increasingly becoming only compatible with Chrome, and JavaShit increasingly assuming Chrome-levels of execution speed.
eitland 3y ago
Who else has been allowed to advertise on the front page of Google? None as far as I am aware of. Not even - again AFAIK - disaster relief after the biggest disasters we have seen after Google was founded. I'd argue that is quite clearly the same league as Microsoft pre-installing Media Player and Internet Explorer: taking advantage of a niche that they completely dominates and abusing it to wedge their way into another ecosystem and then completely dominating that too.
- formerly_proven 3y ago
  When you try to change the default browser on Windows (a setting ignored by some Microsoft apps, which will always use Edge btw.), you can't just change it, you get a pop-up going like: You SURE you wanna do that? Edge is better you know. And more secure. And shit. [ BIG BLUE CONTINUE WITH EDGE BUTTON ] Arial, 6pt grey on white, "Use my choice" link Edit: You also can't move or remove the Edge symbol from your desktop without admin privileges. So for a normal, unprivileged user there's just two things you can't remove from your desktop, recycle bin and Edge.
  - flangola7 3y ago
    What does that have to do with Chrome?
    - n6h6 3y ago
      Nothing, but it has to do with Microsoft, which the comment they were replying to talks about in its latter half.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  Are you complaining about Google advertising its own products on their own websites?
  - jowea 3y ago
    If Microsoft could get in trouble for bundling its own product (IE) on its own OS (Windows) then IMHO this can in fact be seen as abusing monopolistic market power in the search market to benefit in the browser market.
pyrale 3y ago
> Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking. The difference between Firefox and IE was orders of magnitude larger than the difference between Chrome and Firefox. The explosive growth from Chrome can't be explained just by it being better than competition, or Firefox would have replaced IE in 6 months earlier. The real explanation is that Chrome benefited from immeasurable (can't really calculate the cost of chrome being advertised prominently on every Google property) amounts of advertising.
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  Chrome had an ad on the Google homepage! (which is not for sale). And at the top of basically every search in FF, they recommended Chrome.
- simula67 3y ago
  > The difference between Firefox and IE was orders of magnitude larger than the difference between Chrome and Firefox I don't think so. When Chrome came out it was much better than competition too[1]. I don't know if Firefox was that much better than Internet Explorer. It is also possible that Chrome rode the wave of Firefox i.e, Firefox got people thinking about improved browsing experience by switching from Internet Explorer. Then Chrome came along and picked up many new users who may have otherwise gotten picked up by Firefox. [1] https://youtu.be/LRmrMiOWdfc https://youtu.be/LRmrMiOWdfc
- Quarrelsome 3y ago
  I think you're forgetting some of the key benefits: * auto-updates when firefox was still: HELLO WEDNESDAY'S VERSION HAS DROPPED WOULD U LIKE TO DOWNLOAD IT? * tabs were isolated per process where an entire Firefox session could still get taken down by one tab not responding * That super sexy tab handling code where the resizing happened when you clicked away meaning you could close multiple tabs by simply clicking a lot (which you couldn't in Firefox because it was resizing them all the time).
  - pyrale 3y ago
    You seem to be missing the point. My point is that being incredibly more advanced than the incumbent browser was simply not enough to have a great adoption, as evidenced by FF or Opera's market progression before Chrome's introduction. People who make that claim in 2023 simply ignore how important Google's advertising was in securing Chrome's position.

"massive ad campaigns" is hardly an antitrust matter. Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking.

by veave 3y ago

"massive ad campaigns" is hardly an antitrust matter. Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking.

Jenk 3y ago

I would argue it was better but has since degraded. The pivotal point, IMO, was ~6 years after Google's IPO.

Dalewyn 3y ago

Chrome when it released was faster than Firefox, but it wasn't "better". It ate far more RAM than either Firefox or IE did (and still does), back when RAM capacities were still practically limited, and Chrome was (and is) rendering the internet in Chrome ways much like IE did in Trident ways and Firefox has in Gecko ways. Chrome also had and still has its own UI paradigms, including no title bar, menu bar, nor status bar, and an omnibar instead of an address bar. What really made Chrome the victor was they kept improving things common people care about, particularly in JavaScript and therefore JavaShit execution, while Mozilla got lazy on "winning" the war and Google dollars and IE was too late in getting back into the game.

Rarebox 3y ago
Back then I remember switching to Chrome for these reasons: 1. Feeling faster than firefox (still does) 2. Process separation for tabs. Firefox used to crash the whole browser, whereas chrome would crash just a single tab. 3. Shipped with support for Flash and PDFs
- photonerd 3y ago
  Speed is why I use Safari now. It feels like Chrome did compared to FF back in the day. It’s painful using Chrome by comparison. If it wasn’t for Chromes better dev tools I doubt I’d use it much
  - sznio 3y ago
    Only reason Safari feels fast is that it has avoided implementing features. There's still stuff that's been present in Chrome/Firefox for 10 years, but still doesn't work in Safari. Does Google still show the old search results page design to Safari users? It did that for a long time.
    - photonerd 3y ago
      Frankly, Safari works. If those features slow down the web then that’s a knock on those features. Plus I’ve yet to see a single one of these supposedly “missing” features actually matter in the real world.
  - Version467 3y ago
    May I recommend Orion? It's based on Safaris engine, but imo improves massively on its ui (for example it comes with a fantastic (opt-in) tree-style tab browser). But most importantly it supports chrome and firefox extensions. Most of them do just work out of the box.
    - eitland 3y ago
      Orion is fantastic. I still use Firefox since it is cross browser but if I change to MacBook as my dev machine I might go all in on Orion as well.
    - photonerd 3y ago
      Not gonna lie, a tree-style tab browser sounds like awful UI to me, but… I’m glad you like it. Supporting the insecure bloatware that is Chrome & FF extensions tho? Massive convenience factor, I get it, but… ewwww
- kevingadd 3y ago
  It's funny how massive the impact of "bundle a bunch of proprietary stuff into our open browser" was on the browser wars. Between H264, MP3, Flash and PDF, Firefox never had a chance.
  - Nathan2055 3y ago
    The problem is that there simply wasn't a better option at the time. Ogg Vorbis was a novelty at best, and it was the only decently widely adopted open source competitor for any of the items listed that was available at the time. HTML5 was only just published when Chrome launched. So Flash was at that point the only option available to show a video in the browser (sure, downloading a RealPlayer file was always an option, but it was clunky, creators didn't like people being able to save stuff locally, and was also not open source). Chrome in fact arguably accelerated the process of getting web video open sourced: Google bought On2 in 2010 to get the rights to VP8 (the only decent H.264 competitor available at that point) so they could immediately open source it. The plan was in fact to remove H.264 from Chrome entirely once VP8/VP9 adoption ramped up[1], but that didn’t end up happening. Flash was integrated into Chrome because people were going to use it anyway, and having Google distribute it at least let them both sandbox it and roll out automatic updates (a massive vector for malware at the time was ads pretending to be Flash updates, which worked because people were just that used to constant Flash security patches, most of which required a full reboot to apply; Chrome fixed both of those issues). Apple are the ones who ultimately dealt the death blow to Flash, and it was really just because Adobe could not optimize it for phone CPUs no matter what they tried (even the few Android releases of Flash that we got were practically unusable). That also further accelerated the adoption of open source HTML5 technologies. PDF is an open source format, and has been since 2008. While I don't know if pressure from Google is what did it, that wouldn’t surprise me. Regardless, the Chrome PDF reader, PDFium, is open source[2] and Mozilla's equivalent project from 2011, PDF.js, is also open source.[3] Both of these projects replaced the distinctly closed source Adobe Reader plugin that was formerly mandatory for viewing PDFs in the browser. Chrome is directly responsible for eliminating a lot of proprietary software from mainstream use and replacing it with high-quality open source tools. While they've caused problems in other areas of browser development that are worthy of criticism, Chrome's track record when it comes to open sourcing their tech has been very good. [1]: https://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html https://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-i... [2]: https://github.com/chromium/pdfium https://github.com/chromium/pdfium [3]: https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js
makeitdouble 3y ago
Chrome's crushing advantage is/was perfect Google service support. For a long time Safari has struggled with Google Suite, Youtube support is/was janky on almost every other browser etc. The Edge incident was kind of a perfect illustration of how Google either didn't care or actively threw spikes in rivals' wheels.
refulgentis 3y ago
> Chrome was just like [IE6], rendered whatever it wanted. > JavaShit I don't think the increasingly small # of people who still talk this way about the web appreciate how easily this reads as incorrect extremism.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Chrome's throne is reinforced by the combined factors of websites increasingly becoming only compatible with Chrome, and JavaShit increasingly assuming Chrome-levels of execution speed.

eitland 3y ago

Who else has been allowed to advertise on the front page of Google? None as far as I am aware of. Not even - again AFAIK - disaster relief after the biggest disasters we have seen after Google was founded. I'd argue that is quite clearly the same league as Microsoft pre-installing Media Player and Internet Explorer: taking advantage of a niche that they completely dominates and abusing it to wedge their way into another ecosystem and then completely dominating that too.

formerly_proven 3y ago
When you try to change the default browser on Windows (a setting ignored by some Microsoft apps, which will always use Edge btw.), you can't just change it, you get a pop-up going like: You SURE you wanna do that? Edge is better you know. And more secure. And shit. [ BIG BLUE CONTINUE WITH EDGE BUTTON ] Arial, 6pt grey on white, "Use my choice" link Edit: You also can't move or remove the Edge symbol from your desktop without admin privileges. So for a normal, unprivileged user there's just two things you can't remove from your desktop, recycle bin and Edge.
- flangola7 3y ago
  What does that have to do with Chrome?
  - n6h6 3y ago
    Nothing, but it has to do with Microsoft, which the comment they were replying to talks about in its latter half.
manuelabeledo 3y ago
Are you complaining about Google advertising its own products on their own websites?
- jowea 3y ago
  If Microsoft could get in trouble for bundling its own product (IE) on its own OS (Windows) then IMHO this can in fact be seen as abusing monopolistic market power in the search market to benefit in the browser market.

pyrale 3y ago

> Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking. The difference between Firefox and IE was orders of magnitude larger than the difference between Chrome and Firefox. The explosive growth from Chrome can't be explained just by it being better than competition, or Firefox would have replaced IE in 6 months earlier. The real explanation is that Chrome benefited from immeasurable (can't really calculate the cost of chrome being advertised prominently on every Google property) amounts of advertising.

disgruntledphd2 3y ago
Chrome had an ad on the Google homepage! (which is not for sale). And at the top of basically every search in FF, they recommended Chrome.
simula67 3y ago
> The difference between Firefox and IE was orders of magnitude larger than the difference between Chrome and Firefox I don't think so. When Chrome came out it was much better than competition too[1]. I don't know if Firefox was that much better than Internet Explorer. It is also possible that Chrome rode the wave of Firefox i.e, Firefox got people thinking about improved browsing experience by switching from Internet Explorer. Then Chrome came along and picked up many new users who may have otherwise gotten picked up by Firefox. [1] https://youtu.be/LRmrMiOWdfc https://youtu.be/LRmrMiOWdfc
Quarrelsome 3y ago
I think you're forgetting some of the key benefits: * auto-updates when firefox was still: HELLO WEDNESDAY'S VERSION HAS DROPPED WOULD U LIKE TO DOWNLOAD IT? * tabs were isolated per process where an entire Firefox session could still get taken down by one tab not responding * That super sexy tab handling code where the resizing happened when you clicked away meaning you could close multiple tabs by simply clicking a lot (which you couldn't in Firefox because it was resizing them all the time).
- pyrale 3y ago
  You seem to be missing the point. My point is that being incredibly more advanced than the incumbent browser was simply not enough to have a great adoption, as evidenced by FF or Opera's market progression before Chrome's introduction. People who make that claim in 2023 simply ignore how important Google's advertising was in securing Chrome's position.