3 ms·

Meanwhile we clamor to the EU to force Apple to let Chrome replace Safari on their otherwise vertically integrated iPhone.

pjmlp 3y ago
They are the only castle left standing, for all practical purposes Firefox no longer matters, given its market share and Mozzilla's agenda making the world a better place or whatever they are doing now.
- surgical_fire 3y ago
  The irony is that Mozilla could make the world an objectively better place by being laser-focused in turning Firefox into the best browser possible. Taking away Chrome's marketshare and making a dent in Google's absolute power in the web should be their only goal, instead of whatever they diversified into.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Indeed, instead they decided to be an NGO that does a browser as side project.
  - hnlmorg 3y ago
    Firefox is already the best browser on the market in my opinion. Containers alone achieves this. The problem is that Mozilla doesn’t own a leading OS. So theyre always going to be an “also ran”. If history has taught us anything, it’s that the only way to succeed in build a successful browser is to build a successful operating system.
    - deafpolygon 3y ago
      > The problem is that Mozilla doesn’t own a leading OS. And yet Google made Chrome the dominant browser on both Windows AND macOS. How do you explain that?
      - hnlmorg 3y ago
        Because Google is still a household brand. Everyone is familiar with Google search, Google Mail, Google Maps, Android, etc. And Chome came at a time when people were fed up with Internet Explorer. There was a gap in the market when Chrome came along. Remember that Firefox was beating the competition for a period back then too. But Mozilla isn’t a household name like Google. You don’t say “I Mozilled something last night.” Google is such a common name that people literally use it as a verb. But that all said, if Chome was released today with Edge being where it’s currently at (yes, I know Edge is based on Chromium, but let’s look past that for the sake of this hypothetical), Google would have a harder job gaining market share.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        pjmlp 3y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS Maybe Mozzilla should take another approach with such experiments.
Barrin92 3y ago
I'll always support user choice and that is the only thing Apple will be forced to allow. It's extremely bizarre to justify vendor lock-in on the basis of popularity. Imagine if Microsoft would prohibit you from using Google search on Microsoft devices and force you to use Bing and anyone would justify this on the basis that Bing is unpopular.
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  Windows is the dominant desktop OS though. So that would be abusing their market position on the desktop. It’s about locking competitors out via owning the leading market in other parts of the dependant ecosystem. If MS didn’t lead the market in desktop operating systems then it wouldn’t matter what search engine they defaulted too.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    I don't see how it hinges on the market share. If Windows had a market share of 30% those 30% would still be better off if they had greater choice. People are locked into operating systems for all kinds of reasons. A lot of people use an operating system because they say, depend on an Office Suite or a piece of music creation software or to play video games. Why should this dictate their browser engine? Mind you people on Apple systems can still use Safari, people on Windows will always be able to use Edge etc, but there is no coherent argument for not putting more equal choices in front of a user across systems. All these companies make general purpose computing devices, there is no downside for the consumer in having control over them. To let a company be anti-competitive and lock down a platform, so people have to use their proprietary software rather than being able to run a real version of Firefox or Chrome is completely backwards.
    - hnlmorg 3y ago
      Because it’s about competition. If you have a 10% market share and you use that 10% market share to expand into other markets then you’re increasing competition. But if you have a 90% market share, then you’re not simply just expanding into other markets, you’re eliminating competition from those markets. Imaging you have a birthday cake but you said only your best friend could eat it. That would be unfair to the other guests. But if everyone turned up with their own cakes and offers up slices to other people, it then means everyone gets cake and it doesn’t matter as much who you give your cake too.

pjmlp 3y ago

They are the only castle left standing, for all practical purposes Firefox no longer matters, given its market share and Mozzilla's agenda making the world a better place or whatever they are doing now.

surgical_fire 3y ago
The irony is that Mozilla could make the world an objectively better place by being laser-focused in turning Firefox into the best browser possible. Taking away Chrome's marketshare and making a dent in Google's absolute power in the web should be their only goal, instead of whatever they diversified into.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Indeed, instead they decided to be an NGO that does a browser as side project.
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  Firefox is already the best browser on the market in my opinion. Containers alone achieves this. The problem is that Mozilla doesn’t own a leading OS. So theyre always going to be an “also ran”. If history has taught us anything, it’s that the only way to succeed in build a successful browser is to build a successful operating system.
  - deafpolygon 3y ago
    > The problem is that Mozilla doesn’t own a leading OS. And yet Google made Chrome the dominant browser on both Windows AND macOS. How do you explain that?
    - hnlmorg 3y ago
      Because Google is still a household brand. Everyone is familiar with Google search, Google Mail, Google Maps, Android, etc. And Chome came at a time when people were fed up with Internet Explorer. There was a gap in the market when Chrome came along. Remember that Firefox was beating the competition for a period back then too. But Mozilla isn’t a household name like Google. You don’t say “I Mozilled something last night.” Google is such a common name that people literally use it as a verb. But that all said, if Chome was released today with Edge being where it’s currently at (yes, I know Edge is based on Chromium, but let’s look past that for the sake of this hypothetical), Google would have a harder job gaining market share.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS Maybe Mozzilla should take another approach with such experiments.

Barrin92 3y ago

I'll always support user choice and that is the only thing Apple will be forced to allow. It's extremely bizarre to justify vendor lock-in on the basis of popularity. Imagine if Microsoft would prohibit you from using Google search on Microsoft devices and force you to use Bing and anyone would justify this on the basis that Bing is unpopular.

hnlmorg 3y ago
Windows is the dominant desktop OS though. So that would be abusing their market position on the desktop. It’s about locking competitors out via owning the leading market in other parts of the dependant ecosystem. If MS didn’t lead the market in desktop operating systems then it wouldn’t matter what search engine they defaulted too.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  I don't see how it hinges on the market share. If Windows had a market share of 30% those 30% would still be better off if they had greater choice. People are locked into operating systems for all kinds of reasons. A lot of people use an operating system because they say, depend on an Office Suite or a piece of music creation software or to play video games. Why should this dictate their browser engine? Mind you people on Apple systems can still use Safari, people on Windows will always be able to use Edge etc, but there is no coherent argument for not putting more equal choices in front of a user across systems. All these companies make general purpose computing devices, there is no downside for the consumer in having control over them. To let a company be anti-competitive and lock down a platform, so people have to use their proprietary software rather than being able to run a real version of Firefox or Chrome is completely backwards.
  - hnlmorg 3y ago
    Because it’s about competition. If you have a 10% market share and you use that 10% market share to expand into other markets then you’re increasing competition. But if you have a 90% market share, then you’re not simply just expanding into other markets, you’re eliminating competition from those markets. Imaging you have a birthday cake but you said only your best friend could eat it. That would be unfair to the other guests. But if everyone turned up with their own cakes and offers up slices to other people, it then means everyone gets cake and it doesn’t matter as much who you give your cake too.