[Voliokis]

> I watched hundreds of users, given the choice, or doing so themselves installing / using Chrome by their own selection. It was faster. The user experience was far better.

For the first time or because they were already familiar with it? Once you've established yourself as the "default", it can be ridiculously difficult to convince people to switch to something else. Google has executed this strategy perfectly and they know that there's nothing Mozilla can do or anybody else will do. And that despite the fact that Google clearly abused its dominant position in another industry to establish dominance in this field. I'm sick of Google abusing its position and I'm sick of people defending Google because it's a "free market". No, that's not how it works.

[ekianjo]

> Once you've established yourself as the "default", it can be ridiculously difficult to convince people to switch to something else.

Not very believable as FF actually gained a much bigger market share than default IE over time.

[irjustin]

The statement is believable to me once there's context added.

IE was a terrible browser. Everyone knew it and Firefox was better in every imaginable way especially for "web masters". The Firebug system was a godsend.

Firefox unseated IE because of how much better it was. Microsoft could not get its head straight in this particular case. Always a non-conforming, slow browser with far fewer features.

That's what it takes to unseat the default - you have to be multiples better before people take notice in serious ways.

And, Chrome did that beautifully by leaning into the one thing the masses cared about. Speed.

Those ads were so good - extremely viral. Did they show anything objective or real? Maybe... maybe not. It's what caught people's attention and then when they tested it themselves, they believed it.

Personally I tested it and it was, by a very noticeable amount - I was hooked. Took me a bit of time to get over the loss of Firebug, but mostly sentiment because Chrome's debugger was quite good.

If Firefox was the semi-truck, Chrome was the Ferrari. Both got me to A => B. With firefox I could carry anything, plugins, extensions, whatever I needed. But it was a lumbering giant. Chrome came with none of that at launch but it went fast - and people talked about it.

Those were the days.

[Macha]

I'd also point out that tabs and adblock were compelling end user features to the extent that nothing any major browser has on its competitors today compare to. Sync is the closest to a compelling killer feature any browser has got to these days, and all browsers had it very quickly (except Safari, which doesn't have to care when you don't have a choice on iOS).

The fact that Firefox was faster than IE and any technical expert you asked for recommendation would prefer it due to better standards compliance/extensions/having the only devtools were really the icing on the cake.

Google also has the kind of trust amongst end users, especially non-technical end users, that Mozilla couldn't hope to have since Google has their hands in so many pies. And as a technical friend/family member asked to make a recommendation, if anything the incentive is to recommend Chrome to reduce tech support calls when HangoutMeetDuoChat/YouTube/Photos/their preferred google product is acting weird in Firefox again.

It's hard at this point to see what any browser could do to build that kind of end user feature lead again this far into the game.

[treis]

>Firefox unseated IE because of how much better it was.

Nitpick, but Firefox never had the majority of the market or a bigger piece than IE. Firefox was on the way to reaching that but they peaked around 33% share before Chrome came along and ate everyone's lunch.

[kwanbix]

Did you really measure the speed difference? I doubt it was that much. It was mostly about perception.

[emteycz]

I really want to like and use Firefox, but the difference (on a top-end computer) is very noticeable and annoying. Perhaps Firefox should work on their perceived speed, if that's the difference.

[Dahoon]

So you didn't measure it. Worthless opinions as to me on my gaming pc chrome is most definitely slower. Both are opinions and worthless without numbers.

[stjohnswarts]

Real world benchmarks show they are neck and neck leap frogging each other all the time, so both of you are wrong; they're generally so close a human can't tell the difference, it's all biases these days unless someone shows you the numbers. Lots of people don't realize the extensions they add can also severely upset performance, but that's on the user. My 4 year old computer works just fine with both of them and 4 or 5 extensions.

[ekianjo]

> The statement is believable to me once there's context added.

So, the statement does not mean anything anymore then. It should rather be: "it's difficult to unseat a technically superior product with an inferior one" which is patently obvious.