Supposedly today we have a lot of browsers to choose from - Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, etc. Having choices is a good thing, right? Nobody wants to relive the time of almost complete Internet Explorer domination again. Unfortunately our choices are significantly fewer than they seem to be at first glance, as Chrome and Safari (thanks to the iPhone) totally dominate the browser landscape in terms of usage and almost all browsers these days are built on top of Chromium, Chrome’s open-source version. Funny enough even Edge is built on top of Chromium today, despite the bitter rivalry between Google and Microsoft. What’s also funny is that Chrome and Safari control about 85% of the browser market share today, and Microsoft’s Edge commands only about 4%:

Some quotes, any emphasis mine:

We’re essentially left with only two major open-source browsers (Chromium and Firefox), and knowing that one of them is controlled by Google makes it clear that it’s not the typical bazaar-like OSS project. We’ve gotten to the point that Chrome-based browsers are so common that developers just stopped to bother supporting other browsers. Last week I saw one site that directly didn’t support Firefox (it displayed a message I should switch to Chrome) and another where the sign in was broken on Firefox, but worked on Chrome-like browsers. Soon Google are going to be in complete control of web standards, unless something drastically changes. Do you want the future of browsing to lie solely in the hands of the biggest advertising business on Earth? I’m pretty sure that I don’t.

For me Firefox is the only alternative to a complete Chrome hegemony in the sense that:

  • it’s open-source in the real sense (a project that’s truly community-driven)

  • it has a great track record of fighting for its users and for a better Internet. Chrome started with a great narrative when it was facing an uphill battle with Internet Explorer, but it has almost become the tyrant it sought to displace. I wonder if every revolution is doomed to finish like this.

  • it’s home to the last major rendering engine, that’s not derived from WebKit (namely Gecko/Quantum)

  • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Brave is shit and those people are shit, but the deal with Google does put Mozilla in a vulnerable position. The ability for Google to threaten to pull the rug out (as they did last year, contributing to 250 layoffs, end of the Servo project, and Mozilla's stewardship of Rust) effectively ensures their market dominance. Google is able to use their monopoly position to sink unlimited resources into Chrome and crush any competition, much like Amazon does with AWS. For Mozilla to have any hope at all, they need to establish independent funding, but even then they will struggle.

    I'll sooner use Links than embrace the Google walled garden, but Firefox is more of a "last glimmer of hope" then it is a viable alternative. It has nothing to do with it's technical sophistication or its principles. It is a matter of labor power, resources, and domination of adjacent markets like smartphones, PCs, operating systems, search engines, and internet platforms. Mozilla is doing their best to make a modern web browser while Google's founders are having meetings with the Pentagon.

    The only real solution is to expropriate Chrome and sever it's unlimited Google budget. That said, if you use Chrome you're a hack.