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> So there are only 2 web browser engines, and it seems likely there will soon only be 1, and making a whole new web browser from the ground up is effectively i

> So there are only 2 web browser engines, and it seems likely there will soon only be 1, and making a whole new web browser from the ground up is effectively impossible because the browsers vendors have weaponized web standards complexity against any newcomers. Maybe eventually someone will succeed and there will be 2 again. Best case. What a situation. The premise of this article seems completely wrong. Chromium, Safari, Firefox. And a longtail of half implemented alternatives. But the point is that there are 3 independent browser engines that are fairly widely used. They also have their own indepenedent javascript and WASM implementations. There are a few non browser based WASM implementations in addition to that. As standards go, that's a pretty widely implemented one. There are some people working stubbornly on completely new browser engines even. The standards are in better shape they've ever been since the inception on the web. HTML 5 is way better defined than most of its predecessors. If everybody was like this, we'd all be using Internet Explorer. Firefox would never have gained any traction. Chrome would have flopped and Google would have killed it. Apple would have given up on Safari. None of those things happened. Because we are not all passively whining on the sidelines about how things used to be better while not lifting a finger to do anything about it.

aredox 2y ago
Look at the market share. And look at how much breakage report there is with Firefox vs. Chrome or Safari (not to say the return of "this website works better with Chrome" disclaimers, as if we were back to IE6).
- TingPing 2y ago
  Do you have a source for real world sites broken? It’s extremely rare for me and I exclusively use Safari and Firefox.
  - brabel 2y ago
    There's a lot of websites that break for me on Firefox. Most examples are things like small businesses contact forms... I also had trouble with a kitchen design website. I can't remember what it was, but one just showed me a blank page unless I was on a Chrome-based browser.
  - immibis 2y ago
    When I use porkbun in Firefox, it hangs and has to be kill -9'ed.
    - rafram 2y ago
      I use Porkbun all the time with no issues. Probably an extension you’re using.
  - t43562 2y ago
    half the time it's my choice of security settings and not Firefox. So... IMO %$#^% it - if a site doesn't support firefox I'm strongly disinclined to load up chrome to use it. There are lots of sites and lots of businesses.
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    Snyk and a few other corpo sites I have to use for work
deleted 2y ago
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ghusto 2y ago
> Chromium, Safari, Firefox. And a longtail of half implemented alternatives. But the point is that there are 3 independent browser engines that are fairly widely used. Come on, you can't say that with a straight face. Safari exists because Apple has a monopoly on iOS traffic, and therefore an financially significant portion of mobile traffic. As soon as their rigid fingers are pried loose of that (which we're seeing the beginnings of), that's gone. Firefox is great, and I use it, but it has an insignificant market share. The "longtail of half implemented alternatives" are by definition not alternatives.
- kolinko 2y ago
  I switched to Safari from Chrome on MacOS and never looked back. Way faster and kinder to battery. Also, it doesn’t push Google or any other login onto me.
- tonyedgecombe 2y ago
  >As soon as their rigid fingers are pried loose of that (which we're seeing the beginnings of), that's gone. It would be rather ironic if that leads to less browser choice and us all being slightly worse off.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- netdevphoenix 2y ago
  Firefox only exists because Google needs an alternative to pretend its not a part of a duopoly. That alternative doesn't have to be Firefox tbh. They could stop sponsoring and choose any of the thousands of alternatives. Similarly Safari exists because Apple has exclusive control of what goes in iPhones. If it is ever forced by legislation to open it up to other browsers, it will lose some of that control. I don't think it will ever be forced to fully open though. I expect apple to make it so only a select number of entities can afford to release a true Safari competitor.
neuroelectron 2y ago
The "weaponization of complexity" is real—modern web standards are an endless labyrinth of APIs, performance optimizations, and security requirements. Large players like Google have the resources to dictate how the web evolves, while any newcomer faces insurmountable hurdles in achieving compatibility, security, and speed. Even major tech companies have tried and failed (e.g., Microsoft ditching EdgeHTML for Chromium). Can anyone do anything about it? Google’s control is inevitable. No one can meaningfully compete with Google in the long run. Keeping up with compatibility alone is a full-time job for massive teams—which is why even Microsoft gave up on EdgeHTML and switched to Chromium.
- codedokode 2y ago
  You put the blame on Google but isn't it your fault, people who get excited every time a new feature gets added to web standards, and developers who use it? Like CSS masonry, or WebRTC, or web components with shadow DOM? Features like this get lot of upvotes here.
  - bartread 2y ago
    This is the truth of it: if people chose Firefox, or another alternative, over Chrome then Google would have less power to impose its will on the web. This would be a good thing. Google’s power on the web doesn’t simply come from having lots of money and resources - see, as examples, any of the multitude of Google’s failures and shuttered products - but mostly comes from its reach. “Everybody” uses Chrome. If that were no longer true, progress on the web could return to a more open an collaborative model. Anyone can help that happen simply by switching to Firefox, as I did four or five years ago.
    - pmontra 2y ago
      I never used Chrome much. I think I jumped from IE5 to Firefox. IE6 only for testing web apps. Frankly nearly everything has been working well in Firefox for a long time. The only two sources of problems are: 1) Long tail experimental sites that use or want to demonstrate some new technology. I find most of them on the home page of HN. 2) Myself and the security/privacy plugins I use. They break some web pages, especially ecommerce and payment workflows. I either go hunting for the correct combination of permissions in uMatrix (I would become crazy soon if I used uBlock Origin for that) or I use that very site in Chrome and the close it. Major ecommerce sites don't have any problem. The long tail ones are weirder in their choice of third parties. However that's an issue that any browser would have, it's not because of Firefox.

aredox 2y ago

Look at the market share. And look at how much breakage report there is with Firefox vs. Chrome or Safari (not to say the return of "this website works better with Chrome" disclaimers, as if we were back to IE6).

TingPing 2y ago
Do you have a source for real world sites broken? It’s extremely rare for me and I exclusively use Safari and Firefox.
- brabel 2y ago
  There's a lot of websites that break for me on Firefox. Most examples are things like small businesses contact forms... I also had trouble with a kitchen design website. I can't remember what it was, but one just showed me a blank page unless I was on a Chrome-based browser.
- immibis 2y ago
  When I use porkbun in Firefox, it hangs and has to be kill -9'ed.
  - rafram 2y ago
    I use Porkbun all the time with no issues. Probably an extension you’re using.
- t43562 2y ago
  half the time it's my choice of security settings and not Firefox. So... IMO %$#^% it - if a site doesn't support firefox I'm strongly disinclined to load up chrome to use it. There are lots of sites and lots of businesses.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Snyk and a few other corpo sites I have to use for work

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ghusto 2y ago

> Chromium, Safari, Firefox. And a longtail of half implemented alternatives. But the point is that there are 3 independent browser engines that are fairly widely used. Come on, you can't say that with a straight face. Safari exists because Apple has a monopoly on iOS traffic, and therefore an financially significant portion of mobile traffic. As soon as their rigid fingers are pried loose of that (which we're seeing the beginnings of), that's gone. Firefox is great, and I use it, but it has an insignificant market share. The "longtail of half implemented alternatives" are by definition not alternatives.

kolinko 2y ago
I switched to Safari from Chrome on MacOS and never looked back. Way faster and kinder to battery. Also, it doesn’t push Google or any other login onto me.
tonyedgecombe 2y ago
>As soon as their rigid fingers are pried loose of that (which we're seeing the beginnings of), that's gone. It would be rather ironic if that leads to less browser choice and us all being slightly worse off.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
netdevphoenix 2y ago
Firefox only exists because Google needs an alternative to pretend its not a part of a duopoly. That alternative doesn't have to be Firefox tbh. They could stop sponsoring and choose any of the thousands of alternatives. Similarly Safari exists because Apple has exclusive control of what goes in iPhones. If it is ever forced by legislation to open it up to other browsers, it will lose some of that control. I don't think it will ever be forced to fully open though. I expect apple to make it so only a select number of entities can afford to release a true Safari competitor.

neuroelectron 2y ago

The "weaponization of complexity" is real—modern web standards are an endless labyrinth of APIs, performance optimizations, and security requirements. Large players like Google have the resources to dictate how the web evolves, while any newcomer faces insurmountable hurdles in achieving compatibility, security, and speed. Even major tech companies have tried and failed (e.g., Microsoft ditching EdgeHTML for Chromium). Can anyone do anything about it? Google’s control is inevitable. No one can meaningfully compete with Google in the long run. Keeping up with compatibility alone is a full-time job for massive teams—which is why even Microsoft gave up on EdgeHTML and switched to Chromium.

codedokode 2y ago
You put the blame on Google but isn't it your fault, people who get excited every time a new feature gets added to web standards, and developers who use it? Like CSS masonry, or WebRTC, or web components with shadow DOM? Features like this get lot of upvotes here.
- bartread 2y ago
  This is the truth of it: if people chose Firefox, or another alternative, over Chrome then Google would have less power to impose its will on the web. This would be a good thing. Google’s power on the web doesn’t simply come from having lots of money and resources - see, as examples, any of the multitude of Google’s failures and shuttered products - but mostly comes from its reach. “Everybody” uses Chrome. If that were no longer true, progress on the web could return to a more open an collaborative model. Anyone can help that happen simply by switching to Firefox, as I did four or five years ago.
  - pmontra 2y ago
    I never used Chrome much. I think I jumped from IE5 to Firefox. IE6 only for testing web apps. Frankly nearly everything has been working well in Firefox for a long time. The only two sources of problems are: 1) Long tail experimental sites that use or want to demonstrate some new technology. I find most of them on the home page of HN. 2) Myself and the security/privacy plugins I use. They break some web pages, especially ecommerce and payment workflows. I either go hunting for the correct combination of permissions in uMatrix (I would become crazy soon if I used uBlock Origin for that) or I use that very site in Chrome and the close it. Major ecommerce sites don't have any problem. The long tail ones are weirder in their choice of third parties. However that's an issue that any browser would have, it's not because of Firefox.