[stroboskop]

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) 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]

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)

[Justsignedup]

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]

Pretty sure IE has always had a single process per browser window. At least since IE6

[jiggy2011]

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]

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).

[robocat]

Chrome is far safer than IE: 1. built in flash (sandboxed and up-to-date) 2. built in PDF reader 3. security updates are not delayed 4. the filtering is very good 5. friends & family on XP or Vista get the latest version

There are other good reasons why the security is better, with the only downside being the invasion of privacy, where Google are no worse than others, so pick your poison.

[foxylad]

Any doubts about Google's intentions are easily negated by using Chromium.

[mehrzad]

Which is unstable and does not auto update without writing a script. Google wants you to use Chrome and not Chromium.

[Retric]

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.

[pionar]

Except that this doesn't really happen anymore unless the person's running an old version of Windows. IE updates with Windows Update, so it's just as "automatic" as Windows Updates.

[acdha]

Which is still slower: making the assumption that automatic updates are actually enabled (which is often not the case), Microsoft's update cycle is slower (monthly) whereas Chrome & Firefox have both deployed patches within a day of learning about a new zero-day. Microsoft also does not update Flash (prior to Windows 8) or blacklist known-insecure plugins as quickly – better than in the past, to be sure, but still concerning as the reaction loop speeds up.

[jimktrains2]

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]

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.

[ferongr]

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]

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]

Is this a particular geo thing? In the US, I'm getting a McAfee add-on to de-select prior to download.

[lambda_cube]

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]

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]

Probably the stub found that you already have Chrome installed.

[Achshar]

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]

Well, it can certainly find out what browser you're using.

[rythie]

I'm in the UK and it did this - fresh install of Windows 7 (in a VM)

[walid]

It's the same in Lebanon.

[cooldeal]

I think both Flash and Java updates(99% of PCs have them) install Chrome by default.

[cpeterso]

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?

[michaelwww]

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.

[_dark_matter_]

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]

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.

[darkarmani]

> 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"?

This highlights your confusion. The set of people that have average computer savvy contains all kinds of races and economic standing. It has nothing to do with "working class," wealth, or racial status and everything to do with computer skills.

> You don't have to have a college degree and a six figure income to be discerning about technology.

I'm not going to point any fingers, but I just want to say someone has some massive insecurities.

[michaelwww]

> someone has some massive insecurities. That's true. My father and mother were constantly on the verge of going broke, even though they both were employed and worked very hard to save. Medical bills were a real problem. Growing up insecure, it's not surprising I have insecurities. I did manage to get accepted to U.C. Berkeley, although I couldn't finish because my parents or I couldn't afford it and didn't have the skills needed to pursue all the financial aid options.

> The set of people that have average computer savvy contains all kinds of races and economic standing

How is that different from what I'm saying? Saying the "unwashed masses" don't care about what browser they use is inaccurate. That's all.

[hosay123]

Speaking as someone of "lower means" and mostly with a lifelong dedication to computers, I don't particularly care what software I use, and if you forced me to try and rationalize my choices, most likely I would, like the majority of people on the planet, spout mostly meaningless bullshit.

The "tech savvy" only differ in one sense: they are incredibly more delusional about their choices than the rest of the planet. I certainly haven't taken the time to study Chrome's design in depth (or for that matter Firefox's), and probably never will. My reasoning for using Firefox is due to a vague-warm-fuzzy ideological alignment I seem to have with Mozilla and their approach to software. Nothing quantitative, and certainly nothing adequately logical that I could use it to command authority over anyone else on the planet. In fact exactly the kind of thought processes that "joe user" experiences ("I like the icon.. it bounces"). 23 years spent in front of a machine, and that's still pretty much me.

[icebraining]

No, the difference is that you actually know what a browser is. "Google" is still a common reply to "what browser do you use?".

[thisisabore]

You used “Joe Sixpack”, the OP used “Joe Consumer” which sounds a lot less derogatory to me.

[michaelwww]

Right you are. That was unintentional on my part. My mind must have translated "unwashed masses" and "Joe" into "Joe sixpack." The overall tone of it still sounds derogatory to me.

[_dark_matter_]

Just so you know, I didn't write the original comment.

[cc11024]

You'd be astounded at how your "whatever's up for sale" comment mirrors reality. The vast, vast majority of sales are from local inventory, very few people place orders for specific options, colors, etc. Most people shop for deals rather than specific models or even brands. That's why you see so many multi brand dealers. Positioning is also key, that's why the largest dealers are right off highway exits and why so many dealers end up next to each other on the same road.

The Big 3 made it through the miserable 70's and 80's mostly because they had dealers on every corner while superior Japanese brands were fighting to get lots built anywhere.

[obstacle1]

I think that you're being reactive here. The terms "joe consumer" and "unwashed masses" don't have specific economic connotations, they are basically a synonym for "average".

[michaelwww]

Wikitionary: unwashed masses (plural only) (idiomatic) The collective group ("mass") of people who are considered by someone to be somehow uneducated, uninformed, or in some other way unqualified for inclusion in the speaker's elite circles.

[obstacle1]

Note that your own definition has nothing to do with economic status.

[michaelwww]

It's implied. I'm trying to think of a group of unwashed above average income people. Burning Man attendees are the only group that comes to mind. Maybe you live in a country where rich people don't wash up. Edit: then there's the filthy rich.

[clicks]

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]

> 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]

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]

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]

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 Unfortunately, the original article looks to have been removed.

[StavrosK]

I thought I saw that being debunked by a Chrome developer, I remember him saying that this was changed a while ago, and now the cache has a maximum limit. Clearing the cache doesn't seem to do anything for this problem, though (the page still reflows). It doesn't take more than a few ms, but it's annoying when other browsers do it instantly.

[codeulike]

javascript - exactly - before Chrome v1 no one was even talking about speeding up javascript in the browser space. Chrome v1 blew everything out of the water with that. And js speed has a big impact on everything these days, pretty much

[BrendanEich]

23 Aug 2008: https://brendaneich.com/2008/08/tracemonkey-javascript-light...

01 Sep 2008: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser...

TraceMonkey was in the works since late Spring 2008. Apple was also doing more advanced JS performance work before Chrome launched.

V8 had the world-class VM team and at least two years lead (Lars Bak went to Google in 2004; I met him in August 2006 when he was definitely working on V8), so it indeed was fastest at the usual benchmarks, but not by the sometimes-asserted 3x factor.

Maciej Stachowiak of Apple and I were both noting back then how V8's advantage seemed more like 1.3x at the time, but I don't have performance charts from Sep 2008 at hand. Perhaps someone reading does.

V8 got faster over time, as did other engines. Again, it's an excellent piece of work and tops by many measures, but not all -- see http://kripken.github.com/mloc_emscripten_talk/#/17 for two large benchmarks of three where SpiderMonkey beats V8 currently.

/be

[mh-]

Speaking as a dev, but from a user's POV, the thing that made jump to Chrome on release day was the immediate recognition that a single bogged down tab did not impact the responsiveness of the chrome (heh) and other tabs noticeably.

I remember, vividly, in Firefox: I would middle-click on a Slashdot link to load it in the background while reading the current one. My focused tab would begin to hesitate and sometimes altogether freeze for several seconds. In Chrome, only the spinning tab would be affected by their bloated DOM.

[Yoric]

In case somebody hasn't noticed, let me emphasize that the author of the previous post is Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript.

[codeulike]

I stand corrected - thanks Brendan!

[qu4z-2]

For me the speed-up I liked in Chrome was the UI responsiveness, and start-up time. And it seemed to just load pages faster. My current browser of choice is surf from suckless.org (although it's pretty limited) because it somehow just manages to load pages in a quarter the time of Chrome/Firefox (on my computer/internet connection, anyway). I'm sure it'd lose in js benchmarks though.

[Shorel]

When Chrome launched, Opera was faster than Chrome and everything else.

It took about one year and a half of JavaScript engine development for Chrome to surpass Opera in performance.

Since then, Opera has not been the faster browser anymore.

[papsosouid]

>Firefox and Chrome both do this.

Try opera, there's a reason he's pointing out that it is different.

[khuey]

Firefox has had this caching since Firefox 1.5.

[Mahn]

For me tab sandboxing was basically the reason I switched from Firefox. For years I thought it was normal for the browser to slow down and become increasingly unresponsive the more tabs you had open. It was frustrating, but you had to accept it was your "fault", you can't possibly have 30 tabs open and expect the browser to be cool with that, I thought. Then Chrome came, and I was SO blown away by being able to have dozens of open tabs without the slightest change in the overall performance of the browser, I didn't even care I couldn't use many of the extensions I had on FF. I couldn't help but recommend everyone I knew to do the switch aswell after realizing I would not be back to FF.

[thelukester]

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]

> 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.

[thelukester]

> 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.

[acdha]

> 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.

It's clear that it's fashionable in certain circles to claim this. It's also clear that these claims are based on subjective impressions rather than anything measured, which makes me suspicious given that an effect of that magnitude should be obvious and I haven't seen any sign of it.

If you have actual data showing that the current Chrome browser performs worse than it used to, I'm sure the Chrome development team would love to see it.

[chenster]

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?

[brudgers]

"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.

[justinschuh]

>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.

This statement is not just technically ignorant; it's downright absurd. More than probably any company, Google lives and dies by the web as a platform. Chrome is Google's best way to influence and improve that platform. It's why Google previously had a team of mostly former Mozilla/Netscape employees contributing fulltime to Firefox (including one of the original creators of Firefox), and why that team eventually chose to create Chrome. When the web is so essential to your business, it only makes sense to invest heavily in its improvement, and ensure you have a say in its trajectory.

[stinkytaco]

This is a fair argument, but "improving the web as a platform" doesn't necessarily equal "good for the web". If a local developer (I mean a land developer here) runs for city council because he believes in his city and wants to improve it for the good of his business, it's still quite possible that the decisions he makes could be bad for the city as a whole in the long run (i.e. favoring parts of town he develops over others for services, businesses, etc.).

I'm not saying Chrome is a data-mining tool (though I don't doubt that it could be doing some of that), but it's also not a purely altruistic contribution to the community. Google is the big developer that's doing lots of beautification and really contributing to the growth of the city, but Firefox is the community activist that's trying to make sure all the developers play by the rules that benefit everyone, not just them.

[chris_mahan]

Google lives and die by its ability to deliver eyeballs and credit cards to advertisers, nothing else. Never forget that. That they want to "help the web" or "help the internet" is only a strategic play to help their primary objective.

[rsync]

Ding!

[OGinparadise]

Chrome is Google's best way to influence and improve that platform

You mean by pushing Google Mail, search, docs and other Google properties.

[ZeroGravitas]

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.

[brudgers]

That is patent nonsense. The web grew because Windows users were able to browse it with IE in the days before Netscape and when the second choice was going with *nix and Mosaic. IE killed Gopher by taking browsing to the masses.

Netscape was a startup and its founder had a Fuck You Money exit before it met its fate as a corporate subsidiary managed across a continent. The legacy of IE6 lives with us because of suboptimal architectural decisions by web developers. Yet, the web is escaping it - unlike the warts of JavaScript.

[justinschuh]

>That is patent nonsense. The web grew because Windows users were able to browse it with IE in the days before Netscape and when the second choice was going with *nix and Mosaic.

There were no IE days before Netscape. Netscape came first, and IE was originally just a defensive response. That's not to deny that there was a period where IE was arguably a superior browser, but IE simply would not have have been created were it not for Netscape becoming the first mainstream browser.

[brudgers]

What evidence do you have that Microsoft would not have created a web browser but for Netscape? Or rather licensed one, because that's what they did when they could not purchase Booklink.

Had Microsoft not shipped a browser with Windows, browsers would have remained obscure shareware like Netscape Navigator and AOL or Compuserve would have been the standard online experience of most people for much longer.

[ZeroGravitas]

From Bill Gates's "Internet Tidal Wave" internal memo:

"A new competitor "born" on the Internet is Netscape. Their browser is dominant, with 70% usage share, allowing them to determine which network extensions will catch on. They are pursuing a multi-platform strategy where they move the key API into the client to commoditize the underlying operating system. They have attracted a number of public network operators to use their platform to offer information and directory services. We have to match and beat their offerings including working with MCI, newspapers, and other who are considering their products."

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/07/internet-tidal-wave.htm...

He seems to view it as a most serious threat. I think if he thought it would remain non-threatening they would never have made a browser.

[emn13]

I seriously doubt IE did much for the adoption of the world wide web. By the time IE made a dent, WWW was already a huge success and obviously growing rapidly. Being (eventually) pervasive it almost certainly introduced some people to the internet, but if it hadn't been MS it would have been someone else.

I bet the adoption was faster that it would have been if microsoft hadn't integrated IE. Of course, if microsoft hadn't integrated IE it's quite possible company would have died by now (or been a footnote of desktop computing history - like IBM). They didn't really have much of a choice.

[ZeroGravitas]

"IE in the days before Netscape"?

[brudgers]

From a practical perspective, yes.

IE bootstrapped access to Navigator for the general population of computer users. People got Navigator using IE to download it from Netscape's website - just like they get Chrome, Firefox, and Opera today.

Until IE shipped with Windows, the only way a typical user was going to get Netscape was on a floppy disk via the shareware community or perhaps from a BBS. It wasn't being downloaded through AOL or Compuserve and if it was, what would one have done with it August 1995?

It would be naive to ignore Netscape's IPO occurred one week before IE 1.0.

[fpgeek]

"The first version of Internet Explorer (later referred to as Internet Explorer 1) made its debut on 16 August 1995."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer

"0.4 Netscape September 9, 1994 First public beta release" "1.0 Netscape December 15, 1994 First non-beta release"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_%28web_browser%29

[chaz]

Hanlon's Razor applies here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

[ZeroGravitas]

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]

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.

[ZeroGravitas]

"One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities."

-- Bill Gates, 1998 a memo to the Office product group[2]

Seems like the guy in charge knew when to actively "stop putting effort into" things and intentionally sabotage the open web when necessary.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

[brudgers]

What is more believable is that spell check in the browser is somewhat of an edge case relative to general browser usage (i.e. web consumption) which Microsoft was historically able to address by allowing plug-ins. They rolled it into the development of their plug-inless browser and rolled their plug-inless browser into their not quite so backward compatible OS release.

I suspect that the corporate interests have long known that IE is not a sales critical feature.

[criley]

You're telling me that you actually believe that developers at Microsoft pick and choose what features they include in a browser?

You can blame software designers at Microsoft for that decision (or lack of decision), but I'm fairly sure that dev's at Microsoft are on the "fulfill the design" side of developing...

[sc0rb]

Maybe there's a data protection law in one American state that has nothing to do with the conversation that you would like to refer too?

bubble.....

[milfot]

Just because they are stupid, does not mean they are not malicious.. in my experience the two are common bedfellows.

Though in this case I think maybe there is a third option.. ignorance maybe?

[chaz]

Agreed. I usually use the version of Hanlon's Razor that substitutes "incompetence" for "stupidity." Not that they didn't understand what was at stake, but made a series of bad decisions.

[jamesbritt]

The business case for IE is to hold back the progress of the web, ...

Right? We would have had AJAX and DHTML so much sooner if it wasn't for Microsoft holding things back.

[bartl]

Haha, that's funny... because the XMLHttpRequest thing, the main enabler of Ajax, is actually a Microsoft invention,or, should I say: "Microsoft did it first.": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest#History_and_supp...

[gluxon]

Who's making big bucks off Mozilla then? No employee or Mozilla higher-up is making more than average. On the other hand, I can name tons of Google, Microsoft, and Apple guys making billions.

[shmerl]

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]

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

[pifflesnort]

> 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.

[pcwalton]

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?

[pifflesnort]

> Mozilla has implemented SPDY.

After Google designed it, developed it, and then deployed it to their properties. And even then Mozilla was still questioning whether it should be implemented, because "would anyone use it?".

> 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).

We fundamentally disagree on that. I see NaCL as a route to the future of haardware-supported sandboxing, in the same way that virtualization was. NaCL is a way to fundamentally re-invision how we implement sandboxing of process, and move beyond the legacy ring-0 design.

asm.js is just another application-level hack on top of a huge pile of application-level hacks. It's time to coalesce the stack of these hacky abstractions, and clean up shop.

> 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.

So what? You know what happens when I fire up a PPC Mac from 1998 and try to use Netscape 4 on the modern web? Nothing works.

At least something like PNaCL has a MUCH smaller surface area than something like the full HTML/DOM/CSS/JS stack, which makes supporting it in a backwards compatible manner indefinitely far, far easier.

> 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?

Because the web needs to evolve away from what it currently is, and that's the one thing Mozilla ideologically doesn't want and won't do.

[azakai]

> At least something like PNaCL has a MUCH smaller surface area than something like the full HTML/DOM/CSS/JS stack

PNaCl, to interact with the world, uses Pepper. Pepper is a huge surface area, comparable with the web stack in size.

[pifflesnort]

> Pepper is a huge surface area, comparable with the web stack in size.

It's neither comparable in size or complexity to the entire browser stack. CSS, HTML, DOM, and JavaScript are so large that they that require the full weight of large-scale corporations to provide a working implementation that's even remotely compatible with the web as its deployed today.

Mozilla received a leg-up in terms of having the majority of the code donated by a large corporation, and by having the web be compatible with that existing technology stack. I can see how I could spend $1M and have a team implement the Pepper API in 6-12 months, and that includes an independent implementation of NaCL/PNaCL sandboxing (if we leveraged google's development tools).

I can't even begin to imagine trying to create an independent browser stack for any reasonable amount of money.

[edit] This is the current Pepper API documentation:

https://developers.google.com/native-client/peppercpp/inheri...

It's tiny.

[azakai]

I didn't realize what you meant before. Yes, if you add the internal stuff of HTML and CSS, it is a lot. But Pepper is comparable in size to the APIs needed for general input and output on the web - both contain rendering, audio, input control, etc. In that respect they are comparable.

[pifflesnort]

Given that the above text covers a ton of ground, I'm very curious what parts specifically downvoters are objecting to. Something about the comment (and its location in the thread) seems to have evoked a very negative response, but given the broad and very technical subject matter, I'm not sure exactly what or why.

[1] NaCL and the future of hardware, Google's investment in SPDY, surface area of NaCL's complexity, evolution of the web ...

[sergiosgc]

How would replacing HTTP with SPDY offset Mozilla? It's not a threat. NaCL? NaCL is a different applet sandboxing, again not a threat to the browser or Mozilla. Dart? Dart is an alternative webpage scripting language (an alternative to Javascript).

Each of these does not threaten the importance of the browser. On the contrary, they both widen the use cases of the browser and raise the entry barrier for competing browsers. These effects protect Mozilla, instead of threatening Mozilla.

On the other hand, Google pushes OAuth single sign-on against Google accounts, whereas Mozilla is pushing Mozilla Persona, a distributed, no-central-authority SSO for the web.

I conclude the exact opposite of what you state. If we use Chrome, we're locked into technologies that serve Google, if we use Firefox we're pushing open technologies.

[scribu]

> 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]

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.

[evilpie]

Not to mention the dozens of WebAPIs that Mozilla invented and are on the path to standardization.

[icebraining]

Mozilla has had XUL before Chrome was even a blueprint.