Hacker News Reader

Comment by piyush_soni | Hacker News Reader

But then again, everyone says Google is evil to have made their own browser, but most of the world is using it - one would guess they must have done some good things with it (so taking humanity forward in some capacity etc.). Some are even criticizing Google from its own browser - I hate the fact that it made Firefox lose their market share, but I also understand it can't all be because the big corp brainwashed everyone (sure it would be a significant part though).

View on HN

IE6 was the browser "most of the world used" too. But really, surely, there was absolutely nothing done well in it. The only reason it was the most used browser was monopoly abuse. And while we can discuss the exact terminology of "a monopoly" and whether the Ie6 hegemony fit in there theoretically, that it came with the most used OS, really was the only reason it was popular.

With Chrome it is different. But at least a large part of its popularity comes from abused monopolies enforcing this software on people. Less than IE6 i'd say, but still a large part.

While I understand your argument about IE6 which was shipped with Windows, Chrome didn't have that advantage for a long time - it's only now that Android phones and Chromebooks are shipped with it, but I don't know of a single person who does not download Chrome on their Windows Desktop too - even now when Edge is based on Chromium! Firefox has always been my primary browser (it still is, I'm typing this in Firefox), but say what you may, Chrome has taken the internet forward in many aspects. I work on an in-browser CAD tool, and I can see how vastly better Graphics performance is in Chrome when compared to Firefox for example (and it's just one example).

That’s not true. When IE6 launched it was definitely the fastest of its contemporary competitors. The problem with IE6 was not that it was bad at launch, but that it wasn’t touched for five years after launch, and didn’t properly disappear until 2016 or so.

Yes. And in that sense it's also similar to Chrome.

IE6 might have been the best competitor at first. But it certainly did not grow into the 9x% usage and staid there by being the best competitor. It only grew popular once MSFT started using its monopoly to push it.

It really sucked by then, compared to its competition.

Maybe they’ve achieved this position for Chrome leveraging Google’s strength, not because Chrome’s quality? I can name a few reasons, like an aggressive marketing campaign for Chrome circa 2012 (promotion on Google search, bundling Chrome with popular apps) and sabotaging Google web apps in rivals, specially Firefox, that makes Chrome look better for Google’s users (basically everyone online).

I'm not sure anyone is calling them evil simply for making a browser. Tactics like forcing it to be pre-installed and unable to be removed on Android are somewhat evil, especially if they're part of an anti-competitive strategy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com