The second browser war | Hacker News Reader

The second browser war

economist.com

42 pointsprakash30 comments

I read this morning that 50% of salesforce.com users are using IE6. Which, as we all recall, was released in 2001.

This isn't a war-- it's a tiny little skirmish in the island nation of EarlyAdopteropolis.

Let's hope it escalates.

I think the biggest way this is escalating is the telling "download google's new browser" link that tellingly found it's way onto the (famously traditionally sparse) google homepage.

For many non-tech-savvy people, Google is the internet. Just like people type URLs into the google search box, if they see a message saying "download new browser from Google" they're likely to interpret it as "download the new internet"..!

Fair to say that never before have so many "mainstream"/consumer computer users been exposed to such a simple call to switch browser..?

I've been thinking about that a bit. The fact that Chrome needs to 'sell' to users that haven't even made a switch from IE6.

But is that really the case?

Maybe the issue is 'will it be compelling for developers?' (Maybe this's more of a question for gears). But Salesaforce.com is a good example. What if you told users that they need to download a new browser to use an app. Still probably easier then downloading & installing a piece of desktop software (and it's by google).

If a modern browser really enabled things that are just impossible to do in IE6 (or a browser without chrome), developers would develop for them and that would push user adoption.

IE6 is annoying, annoying pushes user abandonment. But it's not enough to push developer abandonment. For that, you need 'prohibitive'.

I think the day developers are making a choice between developing for certain browser(s) or developing for desktop, is the day we have a compelling reason to switch.

As Arnaud Weber, a Google engineer and one of the characters in the comic book, says in a speech bubble: "We're applying the same kind of process isolation you find in modern operating systems." It is a geek's way of saying that developers and consumers may soon stop caring about the operating system on their own hard drive altogether.

Maybe they will stop caring, but I don't think that's what Weber was saying. (I'm not even sure it was a subtext.) I understood Weber's line in a totally literal sense.

No, it wasn't what he was saying. The Economist took an implementation detail to mean something entirely different.

I think the most insightful part of this article is the conclusion:

'Ingeniously, Chrome itself need not take a lot of market share to fulfil Google’s objectives. Google does not expect to sell or otherwise turn Chrome directly into money. Like Firefox’s, Chrome’s source code is free for anybody to change and improve, and even for rival browser-makers to incorporate. That could even include Microsoft. As Mr Brin says, “we would consider it a success” if the next version of IE were “built on Chrome, or even if it were just a lot better as a result of Chrome.”'

I think the second browser war started when Firefox was released.

In that sense, this might really be a third browser war. I think Google is pushing Chrome largely to support performance and standards.

I think Google would like to make browsers into commodity pieces of software. Browsers might have different looks and perhaps different features, but when it comes down to core rendering and performance they are exactly interchangeable.

I don't see Chrome so much as a vehicle to compete for browser share as much as I see it as an attempt to eliminate browser control as a point of competition.

> I think Google would like to make browsers into commodity pieces of software

But isn't what Mozilla is already doing? I honestly don't see the point of putting all this effort in creating something new to support performance and standards, when there is already something else in place achieving those very same goals.

Also, mind you that Mozilla is a foundation, while MS and Google are monopolies.

I'd say that Mozilla and Google doing it are effectually different. Yes, the end products are both open source and browsers.

Practically, especially from the perspective of the business community, I think these are very different things. One is a product from a foundation which may or may not decide to keep operating. The other is from a very heavy weight company perceived to be a dominant up and comer.

If you own the browser you can decide what the default search engine is.

As other search engines catch up with Google on quality of results and usability, the relative switchover cost will become more significant.

So I don't think this is just about standards and performance, though obviously that is powerful too.

> As other search engines catch up with Google on quality of results and usability

That was quite a while ago, in my experience. I often fail to find technical information with google that I can find via other search engines.

If you excuse the analogy, Firefox was like the Vietnam war, started very small/gorilla style and has now escalated into a larger conflict.

Chrome is more of a full frontal assault on both MS and Mozilla (not to mention Opera/Safari), some one else probably come come up with a fitting historical conflict.

How about WWII?

Mozilla coming from the remnants of Netscape was like the transition from the decimated Weimar Republic to Third Reich, starting over.

Microsoft of course would represent USSR, and just to force the analogy, because their PR in retrospect seems to be terrible (this western education of mine re:USSR & considering that bashing MS is the standard online really).

And I guess that leaves Google with America, only entering into the (browser) war half way through.

Not implying anything about the future of course, just forcing an analogy.

(And sure, let's stretch it and have Safari as Britain, because it's an island, independent of the bigger land masses).

You know who destabilized the Weimar Republic?

And Opera?

Japan, I guess. They were fast to strike in Pearl Harbour (i.e loading speed). However, their extensions are lacking (nuclear capacity) and so they suffer for it.

I'm not convinced it's still a war because no single browser is going to be able to dominate and have undue influence on web technologies as a result. All browsers (yes, even IE) are slowly but surely converging on standards compliance - even if it's taking a while.

Unfortunately Chrome can only grow at the expense of Mozilla loosing its market share. The IE userbase won't move, because it's comprised of those who for various reasons are loyal to Microsoft, and those who are ignorant about browsers in general. Both groups don't care about Chrome same way as they don't care about Firefox.

Not necessarily true. Imagine the likes of the Eee PC with a thin client that basically just has Chrome, plus a locally hosted web server with some basic productivity apps? You can run the apps standalone or hosted in the cloud. You could even migrate your local standalone data to the cloud, or sync it so you can work in both modes.

You don't have to move the IE userbase on PCs. It's not even certain that everyone will be using PCs in the future. (Maybe just content creators, designers, and programmers will be using them?)

"The IE userbase won't move, because it's comprised of those who for various reasons are loyal to Microsoft, and those who are ignorant about browsers in general."

Google has a popular website with which to inform people of Chrome when they choose to do so, and their brand is stronger than Firefox and Mozilla, so those who stick with IE due to brand loyalty are more likely to switch to Chrome than Firefox. Outside of corporate installations, Chrome has the potential to convert many IE users.

Even within corporate installations, actually. Chrome installs entirely in user space on a XP machine, and doesn't need admin permissions to install. That should allow it to be installed on all but the most locked-down corporate boxes.

If IE users are all ignorant of other browsers, how did FireFox manage to eat into their market share? Or is it that every IE user who could be enticed to switch browsers have already switched?

Some of the "loyalists" were risk averse. Chrome, since it's from Google, has a very different risk profile than all of the other "not IE" browsers.

Moreover, Google has much more ability to get its message to end users.

What about "corportate" or "enterprise" users who are severely locked down and at the mercy of IT departments? I imagine they are large percentage of IE6 (and 7) users?

There is no war. This is a takeover. Did you see that link on Google's Homepage?

Is it possible to write an ActiveX app that runs chrome inside IE6?

Firefox served a useful purpose. It forced Microsoft to develop and release IE7.

Unfortunately, it didn't go away when that purpose was fulfilled. Hopefully now that Google has put out a browser that can actually hang with Internet Explorer, Firefox will finally pack it in.

I'll take it further.

What google are trying to do is to impose standardisation.Now days web developers need to test a web site on IE and firefox.

What google are doing is testing it only on Chrome and forcing IE and FF to yield and render web pages in the same way as Chrome.

If a user browse to a google app and it won't work he'll go: Bloody MS can't release decent software I'll use Google's they can't do no evil!

harsh

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