13 ms·

The post is spot on. Firefox is a great browser, but reading the OP's last paragraphs, users rarely choose software for quality alone. The most popular alterna

The post is spot on. Firefox is a great browser, but reading the OP's last paragraphs, users rarely choose software for quality alone. The most popular alternatives to Firefox are Google's Chrome and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. I doubt these alternative browsers would exist if they were not useful for Google's and Microsofts main businesses. These companies produce web browsers to support their main products/services. The rationale behind AOL Explorer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Browser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Browser) was similar. In settings like those privacy and other interests of web users are easily sacrificed. Out of all the big browsers, Mozilla Firefox comes closest to being a web browser for the sake of web browsing.

hosay123 14y ago
Just to add, users rarely choose their software at all. If we're talking about the unwashed masses here, then the primary reason Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Safari are popular at all is almost entirely due to placement. Joe consumer, comprising an ever increasing majority of the Internet population, simply doesn't care about which browser she is using. More often it is a result of what randomly got installed as the default through their last foray of random clicking and purchases. As a result, Chrome's regular placement on the Google homepage (and IE's default-installation) give it obvious "competitive" edges. Of course when discussing browser market share this is rarely mentioned, instead popularity is usually attributed to fractional nanosecond differences in rendering time and so on that 99% of users never notice, and simply won't care about even if you told them. (Edit: there is another reason to appreciate Mozilla in here, in that their efforts seem less focused on branding and positioning than they are much more so on function and vision. Mozilla's endgame shares a certain utilitarian theme compatible with what the masses seem to expect from technology (it's a "computer" with the "Internet" on it, not a "Chromebook" with "Google" on it), than does just about every other company in this space who are using their platforms to sell people more shit they don't need)
- ferongr 14y ago
  When it comes to Chrome, in many cases it's not even conscious or explicit user choice. Chrome is aggressively pushed as opt-out shovelware with installers of unrelated software (e.g. CCleaner) and is set up as the default browser if the user doesn't deselect the options.
- rythie 14y ago
  If you try to install Flash on Windows, by default Chrome gets installed too (and probably prompts you to make it default). It doesn't even ask you at install time, it's a default checked checkbox on the webpage you download from - very easy to miss.
  - caw 14y ago
    Is this a particular geo thing? In the US, I'm getting a McAfee add-on to de-select prior to download.
    - lambda_cube 14y ago
      I don't think it's regional. I'm in Sweden and if I visit the Flash install page with IE I get Chrome as pre-selected and if I visit with Firefox I get the McAfee add-on. (And when I'm using Linux, as usual, there are no extra applications installed.)
      - caw 14y ago
        That's a good catch. The browser thing seems logical. I tried all the permutations I could: Chrome - McAfee IE9 - Chrome & Google Toolbar Firefox - McAfee
    - kattuviriyan 14y ago
      Probably the stub found that you already have Chrome installed.
      - Achshar 14y ago
        A webpage finding out what software I have installed is all kinds of bad, esp if there is no flash involved since its the page to download flash.
        Filligree 14y ago
        Well, it can certainly find out what browser you're using.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Or people often have their decisions made for them by slightly more tech savvy friends. "Oh, you're using IE? Don't you know that it gives you viruses? Here let me fix that for you.."
  - tripzilch 14y ago
    I try not to tell less tech-savvy people any more that IE opens their computer to viruses, because afaik it's not really true any more. Back in the day many exploits targeted IE/ActiveX specifically, but nowadays it's Flash and Java that make holes in any browser. (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong and IE is still significantly more vulnerable) But you can't convince people to drop Java if they as much have one site/app depending on it. I'd love to install an alternative non-Oracle Java (not because they're significantly more secure, but to diversify the ecosystem a bit, and to stick it to Oracle for bundling that Ask toolbar), but I haven't figured out how to install them in Win7 yet. (that's not for other people btw, but for the computers at the kids centre I teach) Still, what I wanted to say, the reason I do give them Chrome (or Firefox, or Opera), is because I'm absolutely unfamiliar with IE, no idea how to enable the proper security settings (or if there are any) and I do want to help many people with an AdBlocker (which also can do wonders for one's Internet security, btw).
    - Retric 14y ago
      The real issue with IE is people running old versions of it. So, Chrome's auto update is significantly safer than IE if your going to install once and possibly never touch the computer again.
      - jimktrains2 14y ago
        But couldn't IE be updated via Windows Update? The problem is the people who depends on older version for intranets and the such.
        Retric 14y ago
        IE's updates are always limited to what version of windows your running. In theory windows update should be good enough, but I know plenty of people who can't upgrade to the latest version of IE and see no need to upgrade there computer.
- michaelwww 14y ago
  This is a very elitist and snobbish piece of writing and almost entirely inaccurate. Just for fun, I rewrote it a bit: Just to add, users rarely choose their car at all. If we're talking about the unwashed masses here, then the primary reason Ford, Toyota, GM, or Volkswagon are popular at all is almost entirely due to happenstance. Joe consumer, comprising an ever increasing majority of the car buying population, simply doesn't care about which car she is driving. More often it is a result of what randomly went up for sale at the corner car lot. As a result, Ford's regular placement on the edge of the car lot give it "competitive" edges.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - _dark_matter_ 14y ago
    I'm having trouble understanding what point you're trying to make. What, exactly, is "entirely inaccurate" about the comment? How is your rendition with physical cars similar? How is it snobbish in the least?
    - michaelwww 14y ago
      Using terms like "unwashed masses" and "Joe sixpack" to describe the computer users of working class background where I come from is insulting. Why not just go all the way and them call them "white trash"? The inaccuracy I was trying to highlight with my rewrite was your idea that people of lower means and education don't care about what browser they use, presumably in your view because they are too ignorant to know the difference. Obviously, this is not the case with automobiles and is also not the case in choice of computers, browsers, mobile phones, etc... You don't have to have a college degree and a six figure income to be discerning about technology.
      - thisisabore 14y ago
        You used “Joe Sixpack”, the OP used “Joe Consumer” which sounds a lot less derogatory to me.
- Justsignedup 14y ago
  Well said. in 2008 i was a big advocate for firefox. Yet my clients knew about chrome and wanted to use it. But nobody aside from technies stuck with it. My wife still uses FF exclusively. However chrome became stable. And then it built on it -- multi processing made one site not crash the browser. Startup speeds were fast, etc. Eventually I switched. It was a minimalistic interface that I could teach to my grandparents. And performance was ALWAYS great. So the question remains: Switch back to FF? I vote no, until they finally implement what IE has done since IE9 -- multi processing, or solve the damn problem in other ways. Also chrome's sandbox is pretty much unbypassed except for a couple of times in pwn2own (all the exploits are already patched) Mozilla focusing on the user while google on profit is a point, but it is not a selling point. Show me features. So far chrome's porn mode has been an innovator in the space, and firefox had to hack that mode on to their browser. So from an objective perspective... idk.
  - bimr 14y ago
    Pretty sure IE has always had a single process per browser window. At least since IE6
- cpeterso 14y ago
  How many billions of dollars (in opportunity costs) has Google spent advertising Chrome on their google.com home page? How can Mozilla compete on that playing field?
clicks 14y ago
What you say is probably true for IE, AOL browser, etc., but Chrome (when it came out) was really just a better browser. It was significantly faster than any browser of its time, the new interface to increase vertical space was wonderful, the auto-update was a great feature, the tab sandboxing was great. I had been using Firefox for a long long time before I jumped ship to Chrome. But now I'll try Firefox again because of this post. :)
- StavrosK 14y ago
  > It was significantly faster than any browser of its time How was it faster than Opera? I have never seen another browser give you the previous page instantly when pressing the back button. Chrome needs to start its spinners for a few ms and then reflow the page, Opera just does it. I'm hoping that, with the move to WebKit, I can switch back to it. EDIT: I just checked, Firefox does this too. It didn't, at the time that Chrome was released, though.
  - gluxon 14y ago
    Firefox and Chrome both do this. It is part of the memory caching, which many people disable without knowing the consequences. There were many news articles back around Chrome's release that advised "speed-ups" by disabling cache to free up memory. And the speed people refer to is JavaScript execution. There is no doubt that V8 was much faster than competitors a few years back.
    - StavrosK 14y ago
      It is enabled for me, pages are served from memory (it doesn't request them from the network again). It's just that Chrome is slow at it, while Opera/FF are instant.
      - kbenson 14y ago
        Maybe this is due to their infinite caching? There was a article on HN a while back about how it impacted performance after a while[1]. Turns out checking a large cache of files (apparently with a poor choice of data structure backing the search) for visited links ends up being non-negligible a year into browsing. [1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5281540 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5281540 Unfortunately, the original article looks to have been removed.
thelukester 14y ago
Agreed. On my 2GB netbook, Chrome was one of the first apps I installed. At the time, it was a lean and lightweight browser. But recently Chrome's memory bloat has gotten so bad, I had to switch to Firefox. One killer is the GPU process often taking 200+MB. Before giving up, and switching to FF, I tried the --disable-gpu --disable-software-rasterizer switches to disable the GPU process but that prevented videos from playing at full speed. Some people here mentioned Chrome runs great on their rigs with 16GB of RAM. But for the rest of the world, Google should force their devs to use Chrome on a machine with a mere 2GB. How is it that sites like anandtech and investing.com run fine on my old iPhone 3GS, yet take up 256+ MB in Chrome, more RAM than the phone has? Somehow the 3 year old phone loads and displays the sites smooth as butter. Apple is doing something right or Google is doing something terribly wrong to webkit.
- acdha 14y ago
  > How is it that sites like anandtech and investing.com run fine on my old iPhone 3GS, yet take up 256+ MB in Chrome You can't install buggy plugins or extensions on your iPhone. Try removing some of your Chrome extensions down and you'll be back in the 50MB range.
  - chenster 14y ago
    I've uninstalled EVERY plugins in Chrome. It still freezes up occasionally. Very very annoying. Had to keep remind me that it's a good time to take a break when that happens. No, it's not the Flash plugin as many have mentioned because it is also disabled/uninstalled. So what now?
  - thelukester 14y ago
    > Try removing some of your Chrome extensions down and you'll be back in the 50MB range. Thanks, but I'm a extremely tech savvy user. When I first noticed Chrome getting slow on my netbook, I created a fresh profile and removed all my extensions. It's clear from my own experience, posts here, and benchmarks that Chrome has strayed from it's original design goals of being a lightweight browser. My reference to this iPhone was just to point out that I think it's a issue with Chrome itself, and not the underlining webkit browser.
brudgers 14y ago
"The most popular alternatives to Firefox are Google's Chrome and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. I doubt these alternative browsers would exist if they were not useful for Google's and Microsofts main businesses." The generic argument is empty. Firefox is good for Mozilla's business. Same for Opera. The business cases for IE and Chrome are significantly different. Distributing IE with Windows benefits users for the same reasons that Ubuntu Linix distros ship with Firefox - they providing a rational and reasonable path from the act of stuffing an install disk into a drive to the point where the user is surfing the internet and possibly completing the installation. IE allows windows to be used right out of the box. It's hard to make that sort of case for Chrome - but easy for Safari. Chrome was primaily developed to improve Google's data mining and reduce search server loads by collecting keystokes from the address bar.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  The business case for IE is to hold back the progress of the web, so that it doesn't threaten Microsoft's main profit centers.
  - chaz 14y ago
    Hanlon's Razor applies here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
    - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
      You're telling me IE's devs were so stupid they couldn't add a spell-checker until IE10? Is that really more believable than internal corporate interests deciding that it threatened Word?
      - chaz 14y ago
        Stupidity isn't about the individual developers -- it's about the incompetent decisions that Microsoft made about the browser. They decided that IE would be released only in-sync with new Windows releases. Vista troubles meant IE was effectively on hiatus between 2001 (IE6) and 2006 (IE7). Corporate interests were definitely keeping IE development back, but not as an intentional defensive move to sabotage the Web. Lack of competition in browsers during that period served as a pretty good demotivator, too.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
pifflesnort 14y ago
> Out of all the big browsers, Mozilla Firefox comes closest to being a web browser for the sake of web browsing. There's a flip side to this coin; Firefox exists to support Mozilla's main business, which is the web. This also means that Mozilla staunchly and without fail opposes any technological shift that could unseat the entrenched market position of the existing web technology stack, even if it would improve things for end users. Google developed SPDY, NaCL, Dart, all in an effort to improve the underlying constraints of delivering code/information -- in any form -- to users. If we only had Mozilla, we'd be locked into HTTP/HTML/CSS/DOM/JS forever. Technology has to evolve to move forward, but Mozilla has very little reason to want the web to evolve.
- scribu 14y ago
  > Mozilla has very little reason to want the web to evolve. What? Mozilla very much has a reason to want the web to evolve, in order to stay competitive with the various non-web mobile app ecosystems.
  - pifflesnort 14y ago
    That requires evolving to embrace the strengths of the non-web mobile app ecosystem -- which means evolving away from the web as Mozilla sees it: dom/js/css/html. If you accept 'the web' as more of a conceptual ideal of openness, then there's a lot more room for innovation. The problem is, at its core, that the people who are best suited to change the way the web works, are the developers that stuck it out through learning JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and browser quirks, and then spent the years required on top of that to begin working on the browsers themselves. Of that self-selecting group, how many of them are likely to want to voluntarily rework and/or abandon core web technologies? On the other hand, Chrome, existing to further Google's interests, has every reason to employ whatever creative technology solutions are necessary to improve the user experience, even if that means changing or abandoning the legacy web technology stack in the process.
- pcwalton 14y ago
  Mozilla has implemented SPDY. Mozilla, Apple, and Microsoft will not implement NaCl and Dart because they feel that they are technically worse than alternatives (asm.js and either ES6 or compiling other languages to JS). The technical problems will ultimately provide a worse experience to end users. For example, NaCl is not portable, meaning that users' apps will not work on all the users' devices like they expect, and PNaCl is not backwards compatible, so the apps won't work on all browsers. Dart threatens to make garbage collection slower because of cross-language cycle collection, which results in a worse experience to end users. Mozilla has every reason to want the Web to evolve. If the Web doesn't evolve and loses to native platforms, Mozilla becomes irrelevant and dies. How is that not incentive?
shmerl 14y ago
Internet Explorer was never an alternative for Firefox. It's only used by those who don't know any better, or those who are forced to use it in corporate environments and etc. I personally didn't buy the whole Chrome hype when it came out, and stayed with Firefox, observing how Mozilla gradually made it much better.
- tn13 14y ago
  When I first taught my dad to use the brand new laptop. He asked me what that blue e icon was. I told him that was a tool to download internet browser called Firefox. :P

hosay123 14y ago

Just to add, users rarely choose their software at all. If we're talking about the unwashed masses here, then the primary reason Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Safari are popular at all is almost entirely due to placement. Joe consumer, comprising an ever increasing majority of the Internet population, simply doesn't care about which browser she is using. More often it is a result of what randomly got installed as the default through their last foray of random clicking and purchases. As a result, Chrome's regular placement on the Google homepage (and IE's default-installation) give it obvious "competitive" edges. Of course when discussing browser market share this is rarely mentioned, instead popularity is usually attributed to fractional nanosecond differences in rendering time and so on that 99% of users never notice, and simply won't care about even if you told them. (Edit: there is another reason to appreciate Mozilla in here, in that their efforts seem less focused on branding and positioning than they are much more so on function and vision. Mozilla's endgame shares a certain utilitarian theme compatible with what the masses seem to expect from technology (it's a "computer" with the "Internet" on it, not a "Chromebook" with "Google" on it), than does just about every other company in this space who are using their platforms to sell people more shit they don't need)

ferongr 14y ago
When it comes to Chrome, in many cases it's not even conscious or explicit user choice. Chrome is aggressively pushed as opt-out shovelware with installers of unrelated software (e.g. CCleaner) and is set up as the default browser if the user doesn't deselect the options.
rythie 14y ago
If you try to install Flash on Windows, by default Chrome gets installed too (and probably prompts you to make it default). It doesn't even ask you at install time, it's a default checked checkbox on the webpage you download from - very easy to miss.
- caw 14y ago
  Is this a particular geo thing? In the US, I'm getting a McAfee add-on to de-select prior to download.
  - lambda_cube 14y ago
    I don't think it's regional. I'm in Sweden and if I visit the Flash install page with IE I get Chrome as pre-selected and if I visit with Firefox I get the McAfee add-on. (And when I'm using Linux, as usual, there are no extra applications installed.)
    - caw 14y ago
      That's a good catch. The browser thing seems logical. I tried all the permutations I could: Chrome - McAfee IE9 - Chrome & Google Toolbar Firefox - McAfee
  - kattuviriyan 14y ago
    Probably the stub found that you already have Chrome installed.
    - Achshar 14y ago
      A webpage finding out what software I have installed is all kinds of bad, esp if there is no flash involved since its the page to download flash.
      - Filligree 14y ago
        Well, it can certainly find out what browser you're using.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Or people often have their decisions made for them by slightly more tech savvy friends. "Oh, you're using IE? Don't you know that it gives you viruses? Here let me fix that for you.."
- tripzilch 14y ago
  I try not to tell less tech-savvy people any more that IE opens their computer to viruses, because afaik it's not really true any more. Back in the day many exploits targeted IE/ActiveX specifically, but nowadays it's Flash and Java that make holes in any browser. (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong and IE is still significantly more vulnerable) But you can't convince people to drop Java if they as much have one site/app depending on it. I'd love to install an alternative non-Oracle Java (not because they're significantly more secure, but to diversify the ecosystem a bit, and to stick it to Oracle for bundling that Ask toolbar), but I haven't figured out how to install them in Win7 yet. (that's not for other people btw, but for the computers at the kids centre I teach) Still, what I wanted to say, the reason I do give them Chrome (or Firefox, or Opera), is because I'm absolutely unfamiliar with IE, no idea how to enable the proper security settings (or if there are any) and I do want to help many people with an AdBlocker (which also can do wonders for one's Internet security, btw).
  - Retric 14y ago
    The real issue with IE is people running old versions of it. So, Chrome's auto update is significantly safer than IE if your going to install once and possibly never touch the computer again.
    - jimktrains2 14y ago
      But couldn't IE be updated via Windows Update? The problem is the people who depends on older version for intranets and the such.
      - Retric 14y ago
        IE's updates are always limited to what version of windows your running. In theory windows update should be good enough, but I know plenty of people who can't upgrade to the latest version of IE and see no need to upgrade there computer.
michaelwww 14y ago
This is a very elitist and snobbish piece of writing and almost entirely inaccurate. Just for fun, I rewrote it a bit: Just to add, users rarely choose their car at all. If we're talking about the unwashed masses here, then the primary reason Ford, Toyota, GM, or Volkswagon are popular at all is almost entirely due to happenstance. Joe consumer, comprising an ever increasing majority of the car buying population, simply doesn't care about which car she is driving. More often it is a result of what randomly went up for sale at the corner car lot. As a result, Ford's regular placement on the edge of the car lot give it "competitive" edges.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- _dark_matter_ 14y ago
  I'm having trouble understanding what point you're trying to make. What, exactly, is "entirely inaccurate" about the comment? How is your rendition with physical cars similar? How is it snobbish in the least?
  - michaelwww 14y ago
    Using terms like "unwashed masses" and "Joe sixpack" to describe the computer users of working class background where I come from is insulting. Why not just go all the way and them call them "white trash"? The inaccuracy I was trying to highlight with my rewrite was your idea that people of lower means and education don't care about what browser they use, presumably in your view because they are too ignorant to know the difference. Obviously, this is not the case with automobiles and is also not the case in choice of computers, browsers, mobile phones, etc... You don't have to have a college degree and a six figure income to be discerning about technology.
    - thisisabore 14y ago
      You used “Joe Sixpack”, the OP used “Joe Consumer” which sounds a lot less derogatory to me.
Justsignedup 14y ago
Well said. in 2008 i was a big advocate for firefox. Yet my clients knew about chrome and wanted to use it. But nobody aside from technies stuck with it. My wife still uses FF exclusively. However chrome became stable. And then it built on it -- multi processing made one site not crash the browser. Startup speeds were fast, etc. Eventually I switched. It was a minimalistic interface that I could teach to my grandparents. And performance was ALWAYS great. So the question remains: Switch back to FF? I vote no, until they finally implement what IE has done since IE9 -- multi processing, or solve the damn problem in other ways. Also chrome's sandbox is pretty much unbypassed except for a couple of times in pwn2own (all the exploits are already patched) Mozilla focusing on the user while google on profit is a point, but it is not a selling point. Show me features. So far chrome's porn mode has been an innovator in the space, and firefox had to hack that mode on to their browser. So from an objective perspective... idk.
- bimr 14y ago
  Pretty sure IE has always had a single process per browser window. At least since IE6
cpeterso 14y ago
How many billions of dollars (in opportunity costs) has Google spent advertising Chrome on their google.com home page? How can Mozilla compete on that playing field?

clicks 14y ago

What you say is probably true for IE, AOL browser, etc., but Chrome (when it came out) was really just a better browser. It was significantly faster than any browser of its time, the new interface to increase vertical space was wonderful, the auto-update was a great feature, the tab sandboxing was great. I had been using Firefox for a long long time before I jumped ship to Chrome. But now I'll try Firefox again because of this post. :)

StavrosK 14y ago
> It was significantly faster than any browser of its time How was it faster than Opera? I have never seen another browser give you the previous page instantly when pressing the back button. Chrome needs to start its spinners for a few ms and then reflow the page, Opera just does it. I'm hoping that, with the move to WebKit, I can switch back to it. EDIT: I just checked, Firefox does this too. It didn't, at the time that Chrome was released, though.
- gluxon 14y ago
  Firefox and Chrome both do this. It is part of the memory caching, which many people disable without knowing the consequences. There were many news articles back around Chrome's release that advised "speed-ups" by disabling cache to free up memory. And the speed people refer to is JavaScript execution. There is no doubt that V8 was much faster than competitors a few years back.
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    It is enabled for me, pages are served from memory (it doesn't request them from the network again). It's just that Chrome is slow at it, while Opera/FF are instant.
    - kbenson 14y ago
      Maybe this is due to their infinite caching? There was a article on HN a while back about how it impacted performance after a while[1]. Turns out checking a large cache of files (apparently with a poor choice of data structure backing the search) for visited links ends up being non-negligible a year into browsing. [1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5281540 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5281540 Unfortunately, the original article looks to have been removed.

thelukester 14y ago

Agreed. On my 2GB netbook, Chrome was one of the first apps I installed. At the time, it was a lean and lightweight browser. But recently Chrome's memory bloat has gotten so bad, I had to switch to Firefox. One killer is the GPU process often taking 200+MB. Before giving up, and switching to FF, I tried the --disable-gpu --disable-software-rasterizer switches to disable the GPU process but that prevented videos from playing at full speed. Some people here mentioned Chrome runs great on their rigs with 16GB of RAM. But for the rest of the world, Google should force their devs to use Chrome on a machine with a mere 2GB. How is it that sites like anandtech and investing.com run fine on my old iPhone 3GS, yet take up 256+ MB in Chrome, more RAM than the phone has? Somehow the 3 year old phone loads and displays the sites smooth as butter. Apple is doing something right or Google is doing something terribly wrong to webkit.

acdha 14y ago
> How is it that sites like anandtech and investing.com run fine on my old iPhone 3GS, yet take up 256+ MB in Chrome You can't install buggy plugins or extensions on your iPhone. Try removing some of your Chrome extensions down and you'll be back in the 50MB range.
- chenster 14y ago
  I've uninstalled EVERY plugins in Chrome. It still freezes up occasionally. Very very annoying. Had to keep remind me that it's a good time to take a break when that happens. No, it's not the Flash plugin as many have mentioned because it is also disabled/uninstalled. So what now?
- thelukester 14y ago
  > Try removing some of your Chrome extensions down and you'll be back in the 50MB range. Thanks, but I'm a extremely tech savvy user. When I first noticed Chrome getting slow on my netbook, I created a fresh profile and removed all my extensions. It's clear from my own experience, posts here, and benchmarks that Chrome has strayed from it's original design goals of being a lightweight browser. My reference to this iPhone was just to point out that I think it's a issue with Chrome itself, and not the underlining webkit browser.

brudgers 14y ago

"The most popular alternatives to Firefox are Google's Chrome and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. I doubt these alternative browsers would exist if they were not useful for Google's and Microsofts main businesses." The generic argument is empty. Firefox is good for Mozilla's business. Same for Opera. The business cases for IE and Chrome are significantly different. Distributing IE with Windows benefits users for the same reasons that Ubuntu Linix distros ship with Firefox - they providing a rational and reasonable path from the act of stuffing an install disk into a drive to the point where the user is surfing the internet and possibly completing the installation. IE allows windows to be used right out of the box. It's hard to make that sort of case for Chrome - but easy for Safari. Chrome was primaily developed to improve Google's data mining and reduce search server loads by collecting keystokes from the address bar.

ZeroGravitas 14y ago
The business case for IE is to hold back the progress of the web, so that it doesn't threaten Microsoft's main profit centers.
- chaz 14y ago
  Hanlon's Razor applies here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
  - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
    You're telling me IE's devs were so stupid they couldn't add a spell-checker until IE10? Is that really more believable than internal corporate interests deciding that it threatened Word?
    - chaz 14y ago
      Stupidity isn't about the individual developers -- it's about the incompetent decisions that Microsoft made about the browser. They decided that IE would be released only in-sync with new Windows releases. Vista troubles meant IE was effectively on hiatus between 2001 (IE6) and 2006 (IE7). Corporate interests were definitely keeping IE development back, but not as an intentional defensive move to sabotage the Web. Lack of competition in browsers during that period served as a pretty good demotivator, too.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

pifflesnort 14y ago

> Out of all the big browsers, Mozilla Firefox comes closest to being a web browser for the sake of web browsing. There's a flip side to this coin; Firefox exists to support Mozilla's main business, which is the web. This also means that Mozilla staunchly and without fail opposes any technological shift that could unseat the entrenched market position of the existing web technology stack, even if it would improve things for end users. Google developed SPDY, NaCL, Dart, all in an effort to improve the underlying constraints of delivering code/information -- in any form -- to users. If we only had Mozilla, we'd be locked into HTTP/HTML/CSS/DOM/JS forever. Technology has to evolve to move forward, but Mozilla has very little reason to want the web to evolve.

scribu 14y ago
> Mozilla has very little reason to want the web to evolve. What? Mozilla very much has a reason to want the web to evolve, in order to stay competitive with the various non-web mobile app ecosystems.
- pifflesnort 14y ago
  That requires evolving to embrace the strengths of the non-web mobile app ecosystem -- which means evolving away from the web as Mozilla sees it: dom/js/css/html. If you accept 'the web' as more of a conceptual ideal of openness, then there's a lot more room for innovation. The problem is, at its core, that the people who are best suited to change the way the web works, are the developers that stuck it out through learning JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and browser quirks, and then spent the years required on top of that to begin working on the browsers themselves. Of that self-selecting group, how many of them are likely to want to voluntarily rework and/or abandon core web technologies? On the other hand, Chrome, existing to further Google's interests, has every reason to employ whatever creative technology solutions are necessary to improve the user experience, even if that means changing or abandoning the legacy web technology stack in the process.
pcwalton 14y ago
Mozilla has implemented SPDY. Mozilla, Apple, and Microsoft will not implement NaCl and Dart because they feel that they are technically worse than alternatives (asm.js and either ES6 or compiling other languages to JS). The technical problems will ultimately provide a worse experience to end users. For example, NaCl is not portable, meaning that users' apps will not work on all the users' devices like they expect, and PNaCl is not backwards compatible, so the apps won't work on all browsers. Dart threatens to make garbage collection slower because of cross-language cycle collection, which results in a worse experience to end users. Mozilla has every reason to want the Web to evolve. If the Web doesn't evolve and loses to native platforms, Mozilla becomes irrelevant and dies. How is that not incentive?

shmerl 14y ago

Internet Explorer was never an alternative for Firefox. It's only used by those who don't know any better, or those who are forced to use it in corporate environments and etc. I personally didn't buy the whole Chrome hype when it came out, and stayed with Firefox, observing how Mozilla gradually made it much better.

tn13 14y ago
When I first taught my dad to use the brand new laptop. He asked me what that blue e icon was. I told him that was a tool to download internet browser called Firefox. :P