Their secret at the time? Making an actually good browser that offered features the incumbent didn't have, something Mozilla has absolutely given up on in pursuit of making a Chrome lookalike, up to the point of removing certain features (that power users - their only marketshare at this point - very much miss) and even implementing arbitrary restrictions on the add-ons you can install on Android (you have to use a complex workaround to install unapproved ones). The thing is, people who want Chrome will just use the real thing and have no reason to use a slower lookalike with poor compatibility.
Here's an easy idea to sell Firefox on the desktop to the masses: built-in uBlock Origin, out of the box. Nobody I know that has tried an ad blocker ever switched back, and if they do fall for a dark pattern and switch back to an alternative browser, ads will be a persistent reminder telling them to go back to Firefox. Actually give non-technical users a real, tangible reason to use Firefox.
Apple has codified their anticompetitive behaviour into iOS
I don't disagree that there's probably things Mozilla could do better in their desktop browser.
I do think it's an off topic distraction in a comment thread sparked by a report of how operating systems are abusing their position to limit competition in web browsers.
The same with Apple and their protectionist monopoly platform.
Both companies deserve DOJ slaps.
If you're a start-up founder, these companies are seeping you of the time and budget you need to succeed. They're unfairly sucking the air out of the economy for the rest of us.
Do you think Firefox would have a significant marketshare, and if so, why?
I don't see what out-of-the-box Firefox brings to a non-technical user compared to Chrome. Yes, it can be made significantly better than Chrome with specific configuration and add-ons like uBlock Origin, but non-technical users aren't aware of that and will not try (and those who are already use Firefox).
Google defaults you to Chrome on Android. That's 49% of users, and most won't know to switch.
Google assaults you with Chrome ads on their search page if you use a default browser without adblock.
Google pays for default search status on Apple. Then pulls you in.
Google is currently running a nationwide "better on Chrome" ad campaign. Billboards and murals everywhere.
Remember that they are non-technical, they aren't aware of FOSS or the history of Mozilla and have no ideological reason to pick Firefox, so the decision has to be made purely on functionality.
What groundbreaking, relevant-to-the-average-user functionality (dev tools and advanced, off-by-default privacy options don't count) does Firefox have out of the box that Chrome doesn't?
If Chrome didn't have Google backing it and Apple didn't mandate Safari, Firefox would likely have significant market share.
This isn't a battle over functionality, it's monopolistic invasion of an open ecosystem by giants that control all of the ingress points. They're turning the entirety of the web itself into an ad/product funnel for giants.
I don't care if Mozilla wins. I just don't think the world is healthy with two OS/mobile/search vendors controlling every major piece of technology.
The technology sector will be healthier if these companies are forced to break up. There will be more competition and more innovation as less is spent fighting for the last 1% of growth.
Unfortunately for the Mozilla fanbois, though, Firefox won't be an usurper a second time because as already mentioned it's degenerated into simply a Chrome ripoff.
A new competitor can usurp the throne, but it needs to be a genuinely better product to do that and Firefox today is not a genuinely better product.
Then I used chrome because it was faster and performed better.
Now I use safari because its fast enough and chrome is getting creepy.
That's basically how most people 'choose' their browser.
It also goes over how every other browser engine is actually a Chrome ripoff - some UX changes don't make that so.
When it comes to nagging, Firefox is unfortunately also quite bad, every major update it will find some bullshit to nag you about such as "colorways", Pocket or a VPN.
Respecting privacy.
I urge non-technical people to switch to Firefox constantly. People understand, often cannot be bothered.
Times change and more and more people are realising that in the twenty first century we need to protect ourselves not so much government oppression as corporate dominance and surveillance. So they bother
Part of that is using Firefox. In my experience, people get it. Be they computer programmers or plumbers.
Firefox in its default configuration does nothing about privacy because just the IP address and user-agent are unique enough to track you. It may actually make it even worse because Firefox' marketshare is so small that the user-agent sticks out like a sore thumb.
You need uBlock Origin to have any chance at privacy.
Firefox these days includes a number of features which threaten user's privacy that must be disabled. Their biggest sins I think were forcing Pocket onto people by default, their new tab page, searching from the address bar, and prefetch.
Google is investing a lot in making websites run better on user computers, while protecting the users from malicious websites. This is a problem if you're trying to sell a browser. And an opportunity if you're trying to make a good website.
If Google was actually sucking air out of the ecosystem, all of the VCs would stop investing in websites because no money could be made. But they invest because Google isn't doing that, and there is a ton of air in the economy.
For a contrast, look at what happened to Windows applications in the 1990s. Microsoft really did suck the air out of the system. Startups really did die en masse. And VC stopped investing in Windows applications because your viable outcomes were fail, be bought out by Microsoft cheaply, or be wiped out by Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior. None of which made money for the VC.
Google is also investing a lot into gulping up large chunks of the market too, they're investing heavily into spying on user behavior and collecting as much info as possible. All in the name of improving usability.
Not saying only Google is the culprit here, all big players do it. What I am pointing out is that a lot of these are really hurting the user in the name of making things better for the user.
There software that runs only on macOS, but nowhere near the extent of Windows. The overwhelming majority of people using a Mac have made a decision to use an Apple product. For most Windows users, this was never a choice.
The PC OEMs didn't "build" a platform, they licensed Windows from Microsoft and that license contained anti-competitive clauses. Apple's restrictions on iOS are also anti-competitive, regardless of the fact that they also built the hardware.
Yes
> Apple's restrictions on iOS are also anti-competitive
Why, exactly? Should Subway be forced to allow McDonald's to sell Big Macs inside of each of their locations? That's competition, not anticompetitive.
Firefox does have Firefox Focus on mobile with built in ad blocking/tracker blocking. I use it all the time yet I’m still not sure whether it allows “acceptable” ads due to general ad blindness, though I know it doesn’t block everything (which could just be due to lack of community reports for that ad type, or something).
Great, then it means it's time to actually build a profitable business, or at least own up to their conflict of interest instead of blaming everyone for their inability to run a business without relying on handouts.
Did Microsoft do anything worse than bundling IE with Windows and integrating it into the file manager? Frankly Windows now is much worse than it was then, taking note of the hissy fit Windows 10/11 throws when you go to switch your default browser away from Edge.
The idea that Firefox was able to get market share besides MS anti-competitive actions is incorrect. Firefox was better than IE in many areas, but the history will be different if users cannot switch the default browser.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_version_history
pretty easy to do when the incumbent barely worked on their browser for 5 years because they had a monopoly. i would assume no one would be as dumb as balmer to choke out their own monopoly position to save a few bucks
It’s not clear what they gain from allowing other engines because probably nobody is eschewing iOS/iPhone because of having to use webkit.
Apple could still easily introduce a very rigorous review process for browsers that would likely result in Chromium and maybe “actual” Firefox being approved. But, until a court forces them to, they don’t have any reason to create that headache for themselves.
They probably never expected to be able to get away with this for as long as they have.
High performance browsers never could have been written in the first place if PCs had these restrictions in the '90s through mid 2000s.
Who knows what "application of the future" will not be viable on iOS etc. because they're afraid of writable executable pages or any other undue restrictions.
I do believe what I am saying about security is true, and it would be a non-trivial cost for Apple to have to start worrying about what happens if Chromium ships with a security bug, but at Apple scale it’s less about that cost and more about the complexity it introduces for no benefit to Apple.
To clarify I am not saying Apple’s decision is good. I think it’s very bad. I am just trying to see it from their perspective, and have to admit, it makes complete sense
Besides, you can say a lot of things about Firefox and Chrome - but high performance and memory and power efficient aren’t traits you assign to Chrome.
And from a technical standpoint, high performance browsers enabled the world to misuse HTML + JS to create applications, instead of being limited to documents like it was designed to do. As a developer, building native applications is a lot more fun trying to coerce the browser into doing what I want, because the underlying design actually does what you need it to. Unless "native" means "Windows", though, that has always been painful unless you use something like Qt.
Back in the 1990s,, when I used them, Macs had an "unending stream of viruses" too. DO they not these days? Does windoews still?
This is a false choice. How many of those viruses existed because you could, as a concept (not as a default), mark a page as executable at runtime? I'm going to say precisely none of them.
Apple gain nothing. That precisely why they don't do it. However, we all suffer from a web platform that gets held back by there being zero competition on iOS.
Despite it being a terrible decision, I don’t think it affects Apple’s bottom line positively at all to support other browser engines: they won’t make any money off it, will create headaches for themselves since they need to expand their security surface and do some technical work to support it, and cede control to competitors. Approximately nobody (weighted by financial impact to Apple - whether Firefox uses WebKit or not is, as far as I can tell, completely irrelevant to Apple’s bottom line) is deciding not to release on iOS because of WebKit.
I'd be surprised if this couldn't be turned towards pushing for greater user choice as it was when MS was bundling internet explorer for years. If memory serves, it was competition law which was used to undo that.
Another example: earlier this year it was revealed that Safari had a huge security hole in its IndexedDB implementation:
There's absolutely nothing that a web browser maker could do about it. They fall victim to the exact same bugs that Safari does because they have to way to avoid it. Again, not real competition. They also broke localStorage in iOS 14.1 and took three months to fix it. Because there's nothing forcing their hand.
> The reasons for this are technical, not arbitrary or business related.
Oh my sweet summer child. Apple has many business incentives to push native solutions over web-based ones. We'll never know exactly what motivates them or why but to totally dismiss any business incentives at work here seems naive.
At the monent, iOS being Safari/Webkit only is what keeps us having two engines with both having any real market share.
Safari would still be big on iOS because it has some very useful features and integrations that the competition doesn't offer. Apple's pseudo-TOR and lockdown mode are just two examples from the top of my head of things the competition isn't putting too much effort into. Microsoft has super-duper secure mode, but I don't think Edge users really care.
It will be cool if Apple opens the browser and app installation options allowing PWAs to run like iOS Apps (and all the people working with web apps will be happy).
My biggest concern with PWAs is that only ads are a viable business model for small utility apps.
The App Store rules are terrible (and give Apple too much power). But, it allows selling small utilities. In a world of PWAs, your monetization options are subscription, donation, or ads.
A subscription for a small tool doesn't make sense. Donations don't scale. Hence, the most probable option will be ads.
I agree with you. Having Safari as the only option for iOS is anti-competitive. But, honestly, the competition (Google) will love to have a world of apps relying on their ads infra. The first thing I'll do if I were Google is to add all the missing APIs to Chrome PWAs, so devs don't have a good reason to continue using the App Store. I don't love the idea of having ads and tracking in every little app.
I always find it interesting that Facebook and Google get trotted out as potential boogeymen whenever the topic of greater consumer choice on all computing platforms is brought up, because such arguments conveniently downplay the very real and actually present enemy to user freedom that is Apple literally dictating what products consumers are allowed to use on their own devices.
It's not about competition in browser choices as an iOS user. I'm talking about more diversity across platforms, as opposed to a single engine everywhere, and especially about who'd control that engine (if the single engine was some FOSS one, created by strong community or cross-industry collaboration, I'd might be ok with that).
So, iOS being Webkit only, means it's still more competition than Chrome/Google dictating everything about the web, and taking it into whatever direction it pleased it.
At least now websites NEED to be compatible with iOS, and Google still needs to at least somewhat pretend to care for web standards, and it also means whatever Google unilatery pushes as a new web API or feature doesn't just get adopted by everybody.
They bundled Internet Explorer with Windows, and yes, they did some dirty tricks to try to keep users on IE rather than use alternate browsers. But "other browser engines are forbidden on the phone or tablet" was not something they did.
They still are not "doing the same thing" as that.
Then again, I'm not in your imagination.
Yeah... this wasn't what actually got them in trouble and is a gross oversimplification. They were actively working against Netscape by making other browsers *not work* on the OS. It also wasn't standards-compliant and had all sorts of proprietary tech (VBScript, JScript, OCX, and MSHTML) that would only work with their browser
Something something don't be snarky something something HN rules.
Why it's structured this way, I've no idea. I don't think supplying the hardware should be the distinguishing factor that allows them to wall-in the device. It's one thing to force them to support and integrate devices/software into their product, which is probably not fair on the company, but it's another thing to actively get in the way. It's a thin line with a lot of grey area, but the way it's setup currently probably isn't right.
*viable is doing a lot of heavy lifting as they did need that propping up
I get why you wouldn't want to trust Apple's self-reported numbers, but why would Wikimedia [1] also report Android as being more popular than iOS? What do they get out of it?
[1]: https://analytics.wikimedia.org/dashboards/browsers/#all-sit...
If you want to play a game of semantics, then sure, point to you. If you want to just have a normal conversation about users doing what they want, then I'd say you're outside of the lines on that last shot.
I also own my car, but not surprisingly Tesla won’t have anything to do with me if I replace the batteries with ones from a different producer, because even though I own it, they get the bad PR when it blows up. But of cause I have the legal right to do so, just like you have the legal right to jailbreak your iPhone. Just don’t expect the original company to be of any help to you.
https://electrek.co/2020/08/22/tesla-fights-back-against-own...
https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-...
This occurs time and time again.
Yes, yes. I'm well aware that there are many workarounds. Kids get around it. But, like the lock on your front door, its purpose is to give you a feeling of safety. And not to actually be safe.
I'm not willing to give Apple a pass on this major issue just because they'd have to slightly rework their Parental Controls.
Apple is not forcing its OEM partners to exclude 3rd party browsers.
If Microsoft made its own hardware and packaged IE with its version of the OS sold on its hardware - there wouldn't be an issue.
The big difference is that Apple doesn't license its software to 3rd parties.
On the other hand, if Google were to compel its OEM partners to include software, then Google would likely be facing various government bodies that have issue with this process and possibly facing fines.
At some point Microsoft was forced to include a browser choice program on installation and it had marginal effects on the IE user base. Likewise, despite the heavy shilling, Edge can barely get a foot in. Realistically all that changed is we now have to boot Edge or IE to get another browser again (from average user PoV).
> 18. Second, Microsoft unlawfully required PC manufacturers, as a condition of obtaining licenses for the Windows 95 operating system, to agree to license, preinstall, and distribute Internet Explorer on every Windows PC such manufacturers shipped. By virtue of the monopoly position Windows enjoys, it was a commercial necessity for OEMs to preinstall Windows 95 -- and, as a result of Microsoft's illegal tie-in, Internet Explorer -- on virtually all of the PCs they sold. Microsoft thereby unlawfully tied its Internet Explorer software to the Windows 95 version of its monopoly operating system and unlawfully leveraged its operating system monopoly to require PC manufacturers to license and distribute Internet Explorer on every PC those OEMs shipped with Windows.
Microsoft does make its own hardware. The Surface line of products are pretty amazing. They didn't break any OEM 3rd party market nor dictate anything. In fact, they have a "signature system" policy for their first party hardware that it won't be full of bloatware like 3rd party OEMs used to do.
Google has slowly been destroying its 3rd parties and 3rd parties playing in its ecosystem have been moving towards forking for a while which is why there is always the complaint of unsupported devices after a single cycle there. (and so many community roms/hacks/installers floating around to address this)
Tangent to this is that Safari isn't the dominant market browser in any space.
* Mobile worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/worldwide
* Desktop worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide
* Mobile US https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america
* Desktop US https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america
Really wish they hadn't gone and invented yet another kind of charge port.
Apple has OEM partners? :-)
Seriously, the lawsuit against Microsoft involved anti-competitive behavior, not anti-consumer behavior. In this case, other businesses have better legal protections than customers.
As noted in the complaint, there were several parts to it relevant to a browser ( https://www.justice.gov/atr/complaint-us-v-microsoft-corp ). The first three:
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16. First, Microsoft invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, test, and promote Internet Explorer, a product which it distributes without separate charge. As Paul Maritz, Microsoft's Group Vice President in charge of the Platforms Group, was quoted in the New York Times as telling industry executives: "We are going to cut off their air supply. Everything they're selling, we're going to give away for free." As reported in the Financial Times, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates likewise warned Netscape (and other potential Microsoft challengers) in June 1996: "Our business model works even if all Internet software is free. . . . We are still selling operating systems. What does Netscape's business model look like? Not very good."
17. But Mr. Gates did not stop at free distribution. Rather, Microsoft purposefully set out to do whatever it took to make sure significant market participants distributed and used Internet Explorer instead of Netscape's browser -- including paying some customers to take IE and using its unique control over Windows to induce others to do so. For example, in seeking the support of Intuit, a significant application software developer, Mr. Gates was blunt, as he reported in a July 1996 internal e-mail:
I was quite frank with him [Scott Cook, CEO of Intuit] that if he had a favor we could do for him that would cost us something like $1M to do that in return for switching browsers in the next few months I would be open to doing that. (MS6 6007642).
18. Second, Microsoft unlawfully required PC manufacturers, as a condition of obtaining licenses for the Windows 95 operating system, to agree to license, preinstall, and distribute Internet Explorer on every Windows PC such manufacturers shipped. By virtue of the monopoly position Windows enjoys, it was a commercial necessity for OEMs to preinstall Windows 95 -- and, as a result of Microsoft's illegal tie-in, Internet Explorer -- on virtually all of the PCs they sold. Microsoft thereby unlawfully tied its Internet Explorer software to the Windows 95 version of its monopoly operating system and unlawfully leveraged its operating system monopoly to require PC manufacturers to license and distribute Internet Explorer on every PC those OEMs shipped with Windows.
19. Third, Microsoft intends now unlawfully to tie its Internet browser software to its new Windows 98 operating system, the successor to Windows 95. Microsoft has made clear that, unless restrained, it will continue to misuse its operating system monopoly to artificially exclude browser competition and deprive customers of a free choice between browsers.
------
You can go through these complaints (and the other three - down to paragraph 32) and ask "is Apple doing these things?"
Is apple going out and trying to squash Chrome on windows machines (remember, Microsoft released IE for OS 6 or was it 7?). Is Apple trying to call up Amazon and have them replace Chrome with Safari on their Kindle devices?
The things that Microsoft got in trouble with for its anti-competitive practices with IE are completely separate and distinct from the things that people accuse Apple with for being anti-consumer.
Apple has gotten their wrist slapped for being anti-competitive with books in the past.
Half of DOJ's case about anti-competitive behavior was about the activities that Microsoft took to try to force Netscape out of places through business pressure. Two of the other items were about OEM and licensing, and one was about bundling the browser into the next version of Windows.
The time that Apple did do that was with book pricing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/justice-d...
Note I agree that what Apple does is bad, but claiming that it prevents differentiation where it matters is simply not true.