Bloated and complacent, Chrome might be on the path to playing the same role as IE was playing 15 years ago, shunned by developers and technologically inferior to other browsers.

  • _pi@lemmy.ml
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    6 hours ago

    This is hilariously silly from a developer perspective because Safari exists. Safari is literally the bane of my existence in WebDev because it’s usually the browser that does something weird and not according to standards (which is classically the IE problem). Apple WebKit has significantly deviated from KHTML/Blink in ways that are worse for developers. Chrome does inject defaults to standard interfaces to make websites “work better” where Firefox is much more strict about the standard.

    To pretend that Chromium/Blink/V8 is worse than Firefox or any other competitor is just burying your head in the sand. Blink and V8 are extremely highly optimized and standards driven, there’s a reason Node didn’t choose SpiderMonkey. Dev Tools have significant difference in speed and usability, and I’m a Firefox daily driver and use it for development.

    What Google is doing that’s ridiculous and stupid is using it’s weight to influence the design of Chromium such as the deprecation and removal of Manifest V2 to prevent adblockers under the guise of “safety” or whatever, as well as driving more telemetry and anti-features into the Chromium core product.

    Also of course “MagicLasso” doesn’t say Safari is the IE because it’s a adblocker for Safari. lol

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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    7 hours ago

    Not to sound crazy but I have never heard of Magic lasso until today. Use Ublock origin on something Firefox based or go home.

    They do have a point though

  • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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    17 hours ago

    At the moment though, there is no single likely alternative to Chrome’s dominance. But perhaps that’s for the better.

    First off, why is it for the better not having no alternative? Secondly Firefox IS an alternative to Chrome.

    BTW, this Magic Lasso is an ad blocker for Safari.

    • LWD@lemm.ee
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      8 hours ago

      BTW, this Magic Lasso is an ad blocker for Safari.

      Between this, and Magic Lasso quoting themselves, this blog post is really hard to take seriously

    • Otter@lemmy.ca
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      16 hours ago

      I’m hoping this bit is what they meant

      Maybe a collection of browsers, all supporting open web standards, with substantial, though not dominant marketshare is the answer.

      Instead of having chrome replaced by some other browser and the cycle repeating, the author might want a fair balance of different browsers eating away at their market share?

      I will still recommend Firefox to regular users, and Zen for users that want something new/different (Arc users for example)

      • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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        15 hours ago

        Maybe they really was comparing the dominance position only, not being a usable alternative. Although Firefox does not work for everything and Chrome or other browsers are required instead (such as streaming with Xbox games in browser), so there is that. If we only speak about market dominance and the ability to change that, yes, then I agree that Firefox/Mozilla is not in a position to do that at the moment.

        Firefox should be used alone for the fact that it has superior addon support for ad blockers. That’s a real world difference and reason, not just some ideology (as it was it in the past for me).

        • Otter@lemmy.ca
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          14 hours ago

          Firefox should be used alone for the fact that it has superior addon support for ad blockers. That’s a real world difference and reason, not just some ideology (as it was it in the past for me).

          Agreed! Up till now, it was on par with chrome for functionality / user experience. Moving forward it will be better because it will still have proper ad-blockers

      • Libb@jlai.lu
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        15 hours ago

        They chose Chromium. Which is the base for Chrome (and all other relevant browsers).

        I know we live in a time of why-give-a-fuck-about-facts, but I see two ‘relevant browsers’ in the top ranking that are not chromium-based:

        Chrome 66.68%
        Safari 18.07%
        Edge 5.25%
        Firefox 2.65%

        (https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share)

        • sibachian@lemmy.ml
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          14 hours ago

          and out of those 4, 3 are based on a fork that came originally from khtml. so it’s really just firefox that matters in this race. well, until ladybird is ready.

          • Otter@lemmy.ca
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            14 hours ago

            https://ladybird.org/

            Well that’s cool

            Ladybird is a brand-new browser & web engine. Driven by a web standards first approach, Ladybird aims to render the modern web with good performance, stability and security.

            Singular focus

            We are focused on one thing: the web browser.

            No monetization

            No “default search deals”, crypto tokens, or other forms of user monetization, ever.

            Announcing the Ladybird Browser Initiative

            Launching our 501©(3) nonprofit.

            Looking forward to it, 2026 feels like a long ways away but I imagine there is lots to do before then

        • ShieldGengar@sh.itjust.works
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          9 hours ago

          Your source is missing a bunch of chromium-based browsers to add up to 100%, and there’s no methodology or statistics explanation.

          • Libb@jlai.lu
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            8 hours ago

            Your source is missing a bunch of chromium-based browsers to add up to 100%, and there’s no methodology or statistics explanation.

            FFS… I listed the first four results of the first web search result I got. Also, may I remind you that me quoting only the four first results (unfiltered) of a longer list doesn’t change a thing on the ranking: on those 4 firsts (aka, the browsers occupying the 1st to the 4th places, aka the ones ranked before the 5th, 6th places and so on), two of them are not Chromium-based. That’s all I was saying.

            For the rest:

            1. Feel free to quote other sources, obviously. I would be happy to see other numbers with some more of that ‘methodology or statistics explanation’ you’re talking about.
            2. Have a nice day.
          • Libb@jlai.lu
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            15 hours ago

            Is it that hard to read a four entries list without skipping half of them to try to prove your point?

            Safari and Firefox are not chromium-based.

  • تحريرها كلها ممكن@lemmy.ml
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    6 hours ago

    Not a fair assessment. Chromium and Blink are still open source, cross platform and standards compliant. With IE not only it was closed source but the Mac OS and UNIX ports had a different rendering engine with different behaviour and bugs.

    I personally do dislike Google, but that’s another topic.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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      6 hours ago

      Chromium does do the EEE from Microsoft. (Embrace, extend, extinguish) Last time I checked web Bluetooth and web USB were Chromium only because they aren’t standard.

      Also Chromium often writes the standard since they control the browser. Jpeg XL and Mv3 ring a bell?

      I don’t think it is quite fair to call them IE but Chromium isn’t good

    • HobbitFoot
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      6 hours ago

      It is more that both browsers are by their respective companies to create the Internet they want.

      IE intentionally gimped higher level browser usage as a way to defend the Windows monopoly. Web apps in IE would never be developed to the quality they could compete against natively run programs in Windows.

      Chromium works to keep the Internet open and platform agnostic, but keeps tracking and cookies because Google makes money on the Internet by serving ads online.