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Chrome Overtakes Internet Explorer For Most Popular Desktop Browser (thurrott.com)
Google Chrome is now the most widely used desktop browser. According to the latest figures from marketing and research firm Net Applications (which looked into data from over 40,000 websites), in April, Chrome captured 41.66 percent of the market, surpassing Internet Explorer which now sits at 41.35 percent. Brad Sams writes:This growth by Chrome should not be too surprising as Microsoft has left Internet Explorer behind for Edge but unfortunately, the Edge browser available to the vast majority of Windows 10 users is a sub-par experience as it lacks basic features like extensions. This is a big milestone for Google as their browser faced and uphill battle against Internet Explorer when it was introduced back in 2008.Also read: Windows Desktop Market Share Drops Below 90%
Internet Explorer is STILL the most popular browser used to download Chrome so that you can install it! (But Edge is gaining...)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Seriously, it seems like half of them just exist to do the same thing, and the rest are security holes.
99% of people out there don't understand what they are and they are for, so, unlikely.
The two most important reasons are: firstly, Google loves to peddle its browser whenever possible (they own the largest ad network for that), and, secondly, IE has a reputation of being slow and unreliable.
As for the Edge browser - it is really fast but its fonts rendering on low DPI screens is beyond awful (just like all other UWP apps). Also its UI is way too cumbersome for a lot of people.
At the same time with the advent of Windows 10 Microsoft has stopped caring which browser you actually use - they own your PC and your data.
Too bad. I hate to see the main browsers controlled by conglomerates with records of being anti-competitive and playing games with privacy.
Firefox could clean up its UI act and market itself as the anti-corporate choice. People might care about it again. Tap into the vibrant Bernie Sanders crowd.
Table-ized A.I.
What we really need is to make a concerted effort towards replacing all these centralized web services with distributed equivalents:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
that's what happens when the OS (android) and browser (chrome) are owned by the same company as the online services they drive users to (google, gmail, etc), and the advertising networks they use (doubleclick, adwords).
i fully expect adblockers to be yanked from the google 'store' for desktop and chromeos users at some point in the not-so-distant future. considering chrome's new position as the top desktop browser, that time may be sooner rather than later. companies love to abuse market position.
Have you seen what some of their employees do? Do they really need half of those people? Do they need dozens of evangelists? Does a non-profit need a director of diversity or whatever that title was that was brought up the other day? No - really. Do they need one of those? How much are these people making? It's a non-profit. They should be making a browser and, I guess, an email client. There. Done. They should be damned good versions, all told.
That said - try the "Aurora." It's their special dev build. It's not the dev tools - it's their special dev build. It's not even installed, I just load the binary from a folder. It even updates like that. I stuck some binaries around and made shortcuts and made an alias so that I can load it. Oh wow...
I've not been a fan of Firefox for years - but I've always tried to be supportive. Even my first paragraph is me being supportive. Whatever they're doing with the Aurora version? Do that. Stop with the crap. Stop with the social statements. Make a browser. Make it good. Done. They don't need evangelists, they're a non-profit browser company. They don't need diversity - they need skilled people who will do their job.
Seriously, write a browser and keep Thunderbird. Thunderbird and Aurora are the only two good things they have right now. Aurora, by the way, is awesome. The dev tools are great but it's still great as a browser. It is not my default but it's almost good enough to be my default.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."