That might be, as you point out, the primary thing for _you_. At the same time, Safari updates plenty of times, just because they don't shout about it doesn't mean it's not happening. Same goes for the backing engines (including Blink and V8 in Chromium and derivatives like CEF and node; but also WebKit and the likes).

The web would be better if it wasn't dominated by a very small set of platforms. Adding 'a few more browsers' on a single operating system hardly helps.

Right now, the 'web' isn't much more aside from Google, Facebook and a few commercial offerings like the various eCommerce websites, and they are all accessed on 2, maybe 3 operating system foundations, with perhaps 1 or 2 relevant browser engines. Adding Gecko or Chrome on iOS changes nothing.

> That might be, as you point out, the primary thing for _you_.

I'd be willing to bet that most people would consider that the primary characteristic of Safari that reminds them of IE. The market share was important to the IE hate but it wasn't because "everyone had it" it was because "everyone had it and it sucked" (sucked~= lagged/slowed development/entrenched users with shitty and unique experiences). Don't get me wrong Chrome also shares some of those secondary (imo) characteristics but I imagine when people speak of "IE" it's because of the , what the parent comment and I, consider the primary characteristic.

> The web would be better if it wasn't dominated by a very small set of platforms. Adding 'a few more browsers' on a single operating system hardly helps.

Now that's a hot take. Can I assume you're an Mac user ? honest question

I suppose I use macOS about 40% of the time, Windows 10% of the time and the rest is various Linux/Unix/BSD systems. Not sure how that matters.

I'm also of the opinion that for the vast majority of 'users' a locked down, managed device is the best option. To clarify: with the internet we have a vast amount of interdependent and interconnected systems, which in itself depends on everyone operating and maintaining those systems while they are part of this larger 'whole'.

I think most people neither know, nor want to know how this works or how this is done, and as such, taking part in a system that is dependant on this would be a risk for everyone involved.

Coming back to the 'the internet would be better with more diversity' (as that seems to contradict my earlier statement): diversity can come in many forms and apply on many ends. Having multiple server implementations, multiple client implementations and multiple transport implementations would benefit the quality of every implementation as it would need to be robust and tested to the point where it integrates properly. That does, however, not mean that all those differences need to be present at every layer of every implementation. Having a combination of many vendors all vending a single device with a single implementation would add plenty of diversity, same as a few vendors vending many devices with lots of device-specific variations.

Safari is in no way any slower that chrome. Sure you might have some features that dev care about, but 99% of the sites works in safari as well as they do in chrome.

Also primary for me, and probably a couple hundreds if counting my colleagues and their families and my close friends and their families and of course my families. Huge proportions of them using iOS. So I concur with previous reply. Don't get too fixated with market share. Apple isn't that niche if you include tablets and phones.

Yeah: Chrome is the new IE4, pushing ridiculous new technologies simply because they can.

It's interesting to look back at the difference technologies/tags that survived and which were forgotten: XMLHttpRequest, VML, marquee, etc.

Chrome's dominance wasn't enough to get something useful like WebSQL to stick.

'Ridiculous' is unfair. Google has enough technical chops and market heft to set new internet standards and not look as silly as Redmond did in the 90s in the process.

I think you’re equally being unfair to who Microsoft was and employed in the 90s.

Very possibly so, especially on an individual basis.

Yet the echos of a bazillion BSODs that have seemed less prevalent with Chrome are there.

To your point, comparing an OS to a browser is lame.

I'm not sure how you expected MS to prevent BSOD, which often derived from behavior of programs or drivers. The worst BSOD timeframe seemed to predate computer resources being so vast that common OS protections were viable. And when programs were more hard-crash prone in general.

The high number of security vulnerabilities is also something both IE and Chrome share.