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Comment by athrun | Hacker News Reader

To me, I felt this take was so disconnected from my reality as a user that I didn't even know where to start.

Looking at the author bio, I can see he's very invested in the Blink project so it's difficult to shake the feeling that by arguing for "browser diversity", he's simply pushing for increased Blink dominance.

If one truly wanted to get more diversity in the Browser space, the number one objective should be getting Google to divest from the Chrome project. This would finally create space for other players to come in and have real influence over the future of the web.

As it is today, everything Web-related gravitates around what Google wants. Apple is not playing ball, and so Google is getting the community to push regulators to intervene and make them kneel.

Well, that's my view at least, maybe I'm too cynical.

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From my perspective as a firefox user, chrome/chromium is the most successful browser because it's the best. Apple needs to resort to cheap tactics to hold onto their market share and create vendor lock-in for their users, which is profitable for them.

are you really afraid of a mobile browser that is only used by ~13% [0] of Global Mobile Devices? ~87% of Mobiles Devices run Android (so potentially use Chrome).

Besides that, do you believe that there is any money for apple to earn by "forcing" safari to its iOS users? I would like to see other browser too, but right now it looks more like Google is forcing Chrome in every corner so they can make money out of it.

I personally don't like Chrome everywhere, it's the same shit we had with Internet Explorer. After some features where added to IE you couldn't use Netscape everywhere anymore. It took us quite a while to getrid of IE again. Chrome is IMHO kind of going the same direction, adding more and more features to let other browser look bad -> and thereby improve/increase market share. But are we really benefiting of a single browser engine? We call Browsers Operating Systems of the Web. Why would it be good to have a single OS?

0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272307/market-share-fore...

>Besides that, do you believe that there is any money for apple to earn by "forcing" safari to its iOS users?

Yes. I think limiting functionality in safari is a deliberate tactic to keep users in their app store, where they charge a 30% fee on every transaction.

>Why would it be good to have a single OS?

It would be good to have the whole world on one single OS as long as it's open source. And chromium is open source so this argument doesn't really hold much merit to me. I would completely support a Linux/BSD world domination.

I really don't want to see a single OS, Browser, Anything for everyone.

I generally support the idea of having the choice to select the browser i like, but really hoping we're not again ending up with a single option.

Kind of OT, but i find it confusing that apple is even able to ship Safari with Mac/iOS/iPadOS in Europe, after Microsoft was forced to integrate a "pick your Browser" Screen into Windows. i had hoped that would require every vendor to integrate something like that.

btw, multiple down votes, but a single reaction. Yay, HN at it's best.

> Kind of OT, but i find it confusing that apple is even able to ship Safari with Mac/iOS/iPadOS in Europe, after Microsoft was forced to integrate a "pick your Browser" Screen into Windows

The difference is that Windows had like 95% market share and the iPhone has only 23% market share

but wouldn't all benefit if Apple is forced to show a selection on Mac/iOS, and Google would be forced on Android/ChromeOS?

It would.

More importantly, though, it would also entail Apple allowing other browsers on iOS, meaning that they would have to compete on quality rather than lock in.

The issue is that I, as a dev, am not allowed to use anything not supported on iOS/Safari, since that is half the market in the West. Apple is holding the web back by forcing everyone to adapt to the lowest common denominator, effectively controlling a platform they have no business controlling.

Why aren't you allowed to follow progressive enhancement? How to you handle all the outdated Browsers? And will you next complain about Firefox, cause Google just pushed something new out that isn't supported?

> Besides that, do you believe that there is any money for apple to earn by "forcing" safari to its iOS users?

Google pays Apple between $8-12 billion per year to set Google as the default search in Safari. If everyone switched to Chrome, then that amount would go down a lot (or they could even give it up and let the default go to Bing or something)

Google is also paying for being the default search engine for safari on mac. Looks like that's not really depending on having no other option.

chrome does exactly the same thing on chromebooks.

Please define "best"? Certainly, it's not the power efficiency. Not memory efficiency either. Performance maybe? But then it's very different from test to test. So, what makes Chromium the best?

> Please define "best"?

Best would be the one that users choose to use, when they are given the option and full power to do so.

Users can choose Chrome on their iOS devices. They can even set it as their default browser.

Geeks like us know that iOS Chrome is using WebKit to render instead of Blink. But that is not relevant to most users.

> Users can choose Chrome on their iOS devices.

They cannot choose the actual chrome that would be in iOS if it was allowed.

Users choose what is advertised to them.

Internet Explorer 6 was dominating the web. Was it best too?

Did you read the part where I said: "when they are given the option and full power to do so."?

Microsoft, just like Apple, engaged in anti-competitive practices that prevented user choice.

The solution to both of these situations, is either the courts force apple to allow user choice, just like it forced Microsoft, or for new laws to be created to do something similar.

Unlike in Apple's situation, users had the full power of choice of installing a web browser on Windows PCs. They used IE for the same reason people now installing Chrome: it's the browser where the most of the stuff doesn't break.

You did not address the part where I said "Microsoft, just like Apple, engaged in anti-competitive practices that prevented user choice.".

Microsoft was literally brought to court, and a judge said that their practices were anti competitive.

So yes, the legal system said that Microsoft was anti-competitive.

You should go read up on the court case, because it is an absolutely true fact that a judge ruled that Microsoft engaged in anti-competitive practices.

And now there are new laws, in the EU, that will prevent Apple from engaging in anti-competitive practices as well.

> "What makes Chromium the best?"

I can't speak for the parent, but when most people say this they mean "least likely to break my websites", completely ignoring that this is a symptom, not a cause, of Chrome's dominance. Even my health insurance website breaks in Firefox, and their error message suggests that everyone should just use Chrome. We'll end up back in the early 2000s Internet Explorer situation eventually before the pendulum swings around again.

I also think (but have no evidence) that Apple mandates the browser engine for performance and battery use reasons.

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