Former Mozilla CTO: “Chrome Won”

Megalith

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Mozilla’s former CTO decided to examine the current state of the browser “war” after reading a blog post by Firefox’s Director of Product Marketing discussing Google’s push for everyone to use Chrome and only Chrome, who found that there isn’t really any kind of battle left: Chrome has basically “obliterated” every browser and competition is futile. He doesn’t think Google has won the web, however, suggesting that the internet is moving beyond the traditional browser.

I don’t think there will be a new browser war where Firefox or some other competitor re-captures market share from Chrome. It’s like launching a new and improved horse in the year 2017. We all drive cars now. Some people still use horses, and there is value to horses, but technology has moved on when it comes to transportation. Does this mean Google owns the Web if they own Chrome? No. Absolutely not. Browsers are what the Web looked like in the first decades of the Internet. Mobile disrupted the Web, but the Web embraced mobile and at the heart of most apps beats a lot of JavaScript and HTTPS and REST these days. The future Web will look yet again completely different. Much will survive, and some parts of it will get disrupted.
 
Read that whole thing yesterday, didn't really care much about it. I use Chrome (portable) when needed but my primary browser is Firefox ESR (also portable) because it's still - at least for a little longer - the most customizable browser out there. With the introduction of Firefox 57 coming soon Mozilla is going to basically kill most of that potential by doing something stupid but that's not a surprise at this point so I'll be using the last Firefox ESR released (v52) that exists prior to all those changes they're going to make. Might as well call it Chromefox after what they're planning, it sounds stupid but they're literally just taking cues from Google's developers now as they work on Chromium (the open source base) and then blend those into Chrome (their mainstream release browser).

I'll keep using Firefox ESR till it just won't work anymore I suppose, I know the masses are all about SPEED FUCKING MAKE IT FASTER FASTER FASTER but for me the customization aspects of Firefox are the #1 reason I use and will continue to use it for as long as I'm able.

It's sad to see what Mozilla is becoming, honestly, so vastly different from their original design ideas and project goals. They had a damned good run, however, but it's coming to an end sooner than I would have liked unfortunately.
 
Same here. I like Chrome, but prefer Firefox, and Firefox is my daily user browser. I'd hate to see Mozilla throw in the towel.
 
Reading this on Firefox right now. Also, I do not use Chrome on my Android phone either but almost immediately switched it to Firefox as my default browser.
 
I use Chrome only for development, as I like the tools much better. Firefox is my personal browser and I am not going to switch unless a better one shows up.
 
As with everything on pc's these days, once it get's too big people will turn their backs on it.

I have 4 browsers installed atm, Edge > Opera > Chrome > IE haven't used Firefox in ages. Adblocker in opera does not block YouTube adds for me so I use IE for those which is basically all I use IE for.
 
On mobile devices I use Chrome because its quite simple and well designed (I dont like android firefox for some reason) but on desktop it is Firefox all the way. I hate Chrome desktop browser.
 
Read that whole thing yesterday, didn't really care much about it. I use Chrome (portable) when needed but my primary browser is Firefox ESR (also portable) because it's still - at least for a little longer - the most customizable browser out there. With the introduction of Firefox 57 coming soon Mozilla is going to basically kill most of that potential by doing something stupid but that's not a surprise at this point so I'll be using the last Firefox ESR released (v52) that exists prior to all those changes they're going to make. Might as well call it Chromefox after what they're planning, it sounds stupid but they're literally just taking cues from Google's developers now as they work on Chromium (the open source base) and then blend those into Chrome (their mainstream release browser).

I'll keep using Firefox ESR till it just won't work anymore I suppose, I know the masses are all about SPEED FUCKING MAKE IT FASTER FASTER FASTER but for me the customization aspects of Firefox are the #1 reason I use and will continue to use it for as long as I'm able.

It's sad to see what Mozilla is becoming, honestly, so vastly different from their original design ideas and project goals. They had a damned good run, however, but it's coming to an end sooner than I would have liked unfortunately.
I don't like using chrome and I like using firefox. I hope that Firefox doesn't disappear.
Same here. I like Chrome, but prefer Firefox, and Firefox is my daily user browser. I'd hate to see Mozilla throw in the towel.
I use Chrome only for development, as I like the tools much better. Firefox is my personal browser and I am not going to switch unless a better one shows up.
Yes I agree. The development team has no idea why people use Firefox to begin with. The towel is thrown in. They landed on their own sword. With each release Firefox is being eroded or dismantled. Very lucky however, there is Pale Moon.
 
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chrome has never been on my computer and has never not been disabled on my phone.

chrome is bloatware,

avast asks to install it, flash asks to install it, everything asks to install it.

fuck chrome right in its asshole looking icon.
 
Ah yes, when you've lost and you know you can't win the next justification is always "it doesn't matter who won because (insert market or technology here) is irrelevant now".
 
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Firefox lost because they made it a crapy piece of shit that it is ignoring everything that once made it great. Terrible memory handling and long term performance, terrible UI changes and bloating. Pale Moon still holds on to some of what made Firefox great.

Chrome is slow, has crappy UI and is spyware incarnate.
 
I tried chrome 10 years ago for like 15 min. Never tried again. It just as it always has gets installed by people who don't read when installing stuff to their PC. They use it and think they have to have it. My sister got a new laptop and couldn't find her chrome and said she cant get on the Internet. She dropped off the laptop so I could put chrome on lol. Strange thing all my cell phones alway had chrome mobile on them android so its expected but my new LG g6 came with firefox installed as default browser. I would have installed it anyway. No chrome anywhere.
 
I mostly use Firefox on my desktop. I do have Chrome for the occasional time that something does not work on Firefox. On My iPhone, I prefer Chrome - just seems to work best.
 
Firefox here. On every system I use personally and at work. And every system I build for customers.

Independent browser. Last thing in the world we need is for every single device and computer that everyone owns to use Google's system end to end. It's already nearly impossible to stay logged out of their ecosystem for very long.
 
I like FF, but the performance is shit on my old aging i7 950. (I used to think having a Mechanical HDD was the issue, two SSDs later, and the only thing left is the CPU) I run only two add-ons. ABP and Duck Duck Go.
The thing eats ram like a mother fucker, and slows down to a chug constantly with several tabs open.

I should just use chrome as it doesn't seem to have the problem FF has on the two PC's i've had this performance issue with.
One has switched to CM but I still use FF like a crutch even though I find myself cursing at it.
 
I love me some chrome. I rarely have to reach for the keyboard, and I can't remember a time when a Web page didnt work on it.
 
Chrome works well for me and has a lot of extensions I use. *shrug*

I also like the multi-device sync.
 
I remember back when chrome was the new kid on the block and IE was still thought of as "terrible, but unbeatable " due to it's integration with Windows. Everyone loved chrome and how simple it made browsing. Now that it is #1, everyone feels the need to poo-poo the browser in order to renew their superiority card. Cant be superior to everyone when everyone does the same thing as you.
 
Firefox has spent too much time on UI flashiness and not the underlying engine. That and playing politics. Chrome is going the same way.

Hopefully Palemoon keeps things going for awhile but it looks like Chrome and Edge/IE will be required for site compatibilites in the near future. I already have a couple of sites that firefox won't work with properly. That or sticking to the Chromium base (certainly if using linux). The only real hope I have at the moment is the Brave browser.
 
I hate Chrome today for the same reason I hated it when it came out. And if everyone had loved it as you say it wouldn't have taken years and bad decisions from its competitors for it to gain such traction.
 
Firefox lost because they made it a crapy piece of shit that it is ignoring everything that once made it great. Terrible memory handling and long term performance, terrible UI changes and bloating. Pale Moon still holds on to some of what made Firefox great.

Chrome is slow, has crappy UI and is spyware incarnate.
Just use Pale Moon. It's Firefox without the retardation.
Thanks for promoting Pale Moon; I tried to but I guess too many quotes and people TLDR'd my post. :) Small development team, but they put all their heart into the project and it shows.
 
I tend to use both Chrome and Firefox on the desktop, I used to be solely a Firefox user but there's no denying Chrome is faster and more polished.

On my mobile devices it's Dolphin Browser all the way, fully featured and faster than anything else I've ever used, totally recommended.
 
Google.com Youtube.com top 2 Alexa ranked websites prompt you to use Chrome, with all that advertisement it's easy to see how they gained market share.
 
Browsers are what the Web looked like in the first decades of the Internet.
Of course because nobody's using them anymore, what with the dozens of better alternatives to a browser, like... errr... ahem.

I use Chrome personally because it syncs all my devices for bookmarks, forms, history and passwords. And also because of the script/ad/popup blockers. Every now and then I have to flush DNS and "clear host cache" (for the desktop version) to keep it chugging along, but hey "bad with the good", right?
 
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Google.com Youtube.com top 2 Alexa ranked websites prompt you to use Chrome, with all that advertisement it's easy to see how they gained market share.

God forbid Google advertises their browser on their webpages. :rolleyes: MS does it too it hasn't helped their marketshare (and they also throws ads at you via their OS as well). Oh might that be part of Mozilla's issue? They don't advertise.

Back in December 2008 when Chrome was released there was pretty much IE7, Opera, and Firefox. Not much else to talk about. Pretty easy to see how Chrome took over. They only true contender there was Firefox.

Firefox to this day has pretty much zero advertising and they've been going downhill ever since about July 2011 if you look at markshare. January 2011 they were at just a hair shy of 31% (about double Chrome's marketshare at the time). July 2011 they were below 28% (still more market share than Chrome at the time by about 6%). Opera...never did anything. Most people don't even know it exists. We don't even have to talk about what a POS IE is.

If you build a better browser people will use it and that's what happened here. I used Firefox for many years. I'd be willing to bet I first started using Chrome about July 2011. Chrome first got extensions in January 2010. They had nothing like NoScript at the time though so I didn't leave Firefox until NotScript was released and that was about a year later give or take.

In the end what made Firefox irrelevant to so many was a bunch of things.

1. A bunch of bad decisions with the browser.
2. Waste time and money on Firefox OS instead of focusing on the browser.
3. Not putting out mobile browsers fast enough. They sat on the one for iOS forever simply because any browser on iOS is a pig with lipstick on it Safari with a different interface. They didn't release a browser on iOS until November 2016. It took them over 6 years to release on iOS. Talk about being irrelevant in the mobile space.
3. Chrome is a better browser, it has tons of advertising, and it's Google. Those are the three things that Google (and MS in the past with IE) needed to get Joe Average to climb aboard the Chrome train and Google did it beautifully.
 
Vivaldi, anyone?!! never really liked firefox. use to use opera till they turned into a chrome skin. now i still use opera for android, tho.
Vivaldi is basically the people who worked on good old original opera(presto) back in the my.opera days so it's feature rich in many ways that attracted old opera users. Vivaldi is a chrome skin as well because maintaining your own rendering engine is costly and difficult, but it's more like the old opera than opera is lol.
God forbid Google advertises their browser on their webpages. :rolleyes: MS does it too it hasn't helped their marketshare (and they also throws ads at you via their OS as well).
Never said it was a bad thing just saying that's one of the reasons why firefox could never steal marketshare enough from IE, they didn't have the advertisement.

Prompting people to use Chrome on the top 2 websites pretty much means everyone will see it and know about it, maybe even try it. It's like having IE default installed on the OS the layman might just try it and stick with it. The layman might never actually look for other browsers unless asked otherwise, if I don't know any better and use youtube alot and youtube asks me to use Chrome for a better experience I'm very inclined to try it. That's what I credit Chrome to being able to capture similar market space as IE used to in the past.
 
I'd just like to say that at one point IE had "won".

That said, I never used IE as I always hated the browser. I probably started with Netscape way back when, then moved to Opera when it was 1.x or maybe 2.x, I don't remember exactly. I stuck with that for quite a while as I didn't care for Opera 3 and Opera 4 was really bloated. Luckily, Firefox 0.7 came around with a lot of awesome extensions and I used Firefox for years. Sadly, Firefox did its best to make itself as much of a Chrome clone as possible and I stopped using it. I have since moved over to using Vivaldi and as long as that is kept up to date I'll probably continue using it for the foreseeable future.
 
I was happy with Opera until they stuffed it up. Had to move to Chrome for speed and simplicity. Google's marketing is good though, Chrome is on our minds more than Firefox unless you are in the know.
 
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