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Comment by metalliqaz | Hacker News Reader

With the news that Edge would switch to chromium, Firefox is really the only thing preventing a complete web browser monoculture. Support Firefox if you can!

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Thanks for the reminder. I try to give a little to Mozilla and Wikipedia on a regular basis. So far they are living proof that there is a way to make this whole mess work at a high standard of quality without resorting to the advertising model, which seems to become more heinous by the day.

Please everyone help the other options survive, even if you don't personally like them or use them. There is no way legislators are ever going to catch up on their technical knowledge enough to manage even the most blatant monopoly. Who am I kidding, they wouldn't care anyway. Somebody has to get in there to offer competition and keep things honest. Having options improves all of the options.

Edge moving to Chromium has handed Google a lot of extra power which gives them the ability to make changes like this.

> Firefox is really the only thing preventing a complete web browser monoculture

WebKit?

Trading Google overlords for Apple overlords does not seem like an upgrade.

That's totally fine, but it's still disingenuous to claim that Firefox is the only other browser out there.

Chrome------------------64.15%

Internet Explorer--------10.83%

Firefox-------------------9.89%

Edge---------------------4.30%

Safari--------------------3.80%

Opera--------------------1.58%

Safari will survive since Apple is their patron. Obviously Internet Explorer is only a lumbering undead husk at this point, and it's pretty shameful that it's still outgunning Firefox by a small amount. Even more sad that it's got over twice as many users as Edge, lol.

These numbers do not appear to include mobile browsers. Mobile browsers are just as important as desktop browsers these days, because a lot of people use them as much or more than they use desktop browsers.

If you include mobile browsers, Safari's market share is closer to 17%, which makes it the #2 most popular:

https://netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?options...

Ah, I was getting my data from the same site but I forgot to toggle mobile browsers. Wonder why that's not the default option? That's silly.

Your numbers are off by a bit.

I work for a website with around 1.2 billion annual pageviews. Mobile Safari is about 55%, Chrome (mobile & desktop) 35% and everything else gets the leftovers. Samsung browser is growing fast while IE, Edge, macOS Safari and Firefox are rounding errors.

Kindle browser does better than IE. It’s amazing how far and hard it's fallen.

With Apple, you're the customer, not the product. For one, Apple defends and doesn't sell your data.

> For one, Apple defends ...

It's fairly likely that's just PR. They're a US headquartered place, so would have to comply with NSL's (etc) just like every other US company.

Yes, they have to comply with NSLs. Difference though is the level of data they harvest on you. Google's business model requires they harvest as much as possible and in a way they ensure they can read it. Further, the bigger risk to most users is not NSL's, it's having some dodgy ad-corp buy your data and sell it to even dodgier companies.

> and sell it to even dodgier companies

And banks and insurances for credit ratings. And for screening companies, that are contracted to evaluate your job application on basis of your purchases, locations and so on

Unless you happen to live in China.

I use Safari as my preferred browser and I'm really happy with it, it's become a lot faster with each update, noticeably so. But I don't trust Apple any more than I trust Google to fight for a free Internet. We need an open browser.

We sure do, but Apple is trustworthy. Their business is not grabbing user data but keep it as private as possible. That sells devices.

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