WebProNews

Tag: Browser Wars

  • Microsoft Is Going Back to the ‘90s, Using Windows to Push Its Web Browser

    Microsoft Is Going Back to the ‘90s, Using Windows to Push Its Web Browser

    Microsoft is under fire for (once again) abusing its Windows platform to push its own web browser, reminiscent of its actions in the mid-90s.

    Microsoft’s history in the mid-90s was dominated by its browser war with Netscape. The company ultimately bundled Internet Explorer so tightly with Windows, that it was simply too difficult and inconvenient for most users to continue relying on Netscape.

    It seems Microsoft may be reverting back to that behavior and, in the process, is drawing sharp criticism from third-party browser makers, including Mozilla, Brave, Opera and Vivaldi. As The Verge points out, Windows 11 asks the user, when they install a third-party browser and try to open a link for the first time, which browser they want set as their default. However, unless the user selects “always use this app,” the default will remain unchanged. There’s also no fast and easy way to go back and do so if the user doesn’t get it right during that initial dialog.

    To make matters even worse, rather than providing a simple method to change the web browser in settings, Microsoft now forces users to select the browser they want to use for each and every one of the various filetypes that often comprise a website. That means the user has to set the default web browser for HTTP, HTTPS, HTM, HTML, XHT, XHTML, PDF, SHTML, SVG, WEBP and FTP.

    While users obviously may want to use a dedicated FTP or PDF client, every other one of those files should all be lumped together, handled by a single default browser.

    Even if a user goes through the tedious process of changing the default browser for each and every one of the necessary file types, it still won’t stop Windows from defaulting to Edge. A number of browser-based widgets will still open Edge regardless of the default setting.

    Inexplicably, Microsoft says this is what users want.

    “With Windows 11, we are implementing customer feedback to customize and control defaults at a more granular level, eliminating app categories and elevating all apps to the forefront of the defaults experience,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Verge. “As evidenced by this change, we’re constantly listening and learning, and welcome customer feedback that helps shape Windows. Windows 11 will continue to evolve over time; if we learn from user experience that there are ways to make improvements, we will do so.”

    What Microsoft no doubt meant to say is: “We searched long and hard to find the most technologically masochistic users we could find, ones that love having their own technology fight against them, and based our decisions on their feedback.”

    There were a lot of great things about the ‘90s, but Microsoft’s behavior wasn’t one of them. The company should abandon this nonsense immediately.

  • Google and Microsoft Reigniting Browser Wars

    Google and Microsoft Reigniting Browser Wars

    Some things are too good to last, and it appears Google and Microsoft’s BFF cooperation on the browser front is one of them, as both companies are taking swipes at the other.

    Microsoft’s current browser, Edge, uses Google’s Chromium rendering engine. Chromium is an open-source rendering engine that a number of browsers, including Chrome, are powered by. Microsoft retired its own HTML rendering engine in favor of the move to Chromium in an effort to improve compatibility and reliability. Basing Edge on Chromium also lets Microsoft focus more resources on the browser’s front-end and user experience. Microsoft has even added a number of significant features to Edge that have made, or are making, their way into Chrome.

    The cracks started to show up when Google began using user agents to warn Microsoft Edge users they should “upgrade” to Google’s Chrome. User agent strings are the method by which web browsers identify themselves. In the early days of the web, when Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator were vying for dominance, webmasters would routinely code their websites to primarily work with one or the other browser. Webmasters would check a visiting browser’s user agent, or identity, and warn users they needed to “upgrade” if they weren’t running the browser their website was designed to support. Eventually, as the web started becoming more standards-compliant, the practice largely fell out of favor, with webmasters focusing on creating websites that adhered to standards and worked for everyone.

    Now Google seems intent on going back to those dark days of the early web. According to Windows Latest, “Google services are still targeting Edge with scary warnings. In the past, Google has displayed a warning when users opened services such as Google Teams, Gmail, Google Docs and YouTube Music in Edge.”

    Interestingly, if Edge users change their user agent to Chrome, the warning goes away. Google is also not targeting other Chromium-based browsers, such as Opera.

    Microsoft, in turn, has been warning individuals who try to download extensions from the Chrome Web Store that downloaded extensions from “unverified” sources may not be safe.

    Chris Matyszczyk, with ZDNet, reached out to both companies, as well as did a bit of his own investigating.

    “My sniffings around Google suggest the company may have been taken aback by the positive public reaction to Edge,” writes Matyszczyk. “Oddly, Google doesn’t seem to be offering these scary messages to users of, say, the Opera browser.

    “My nasal probings around Redmond offer the reasoning that, well, Microsoft hasn’t tested or verified extensions that arrive from places other than they Microsoft Edge add-ons website. Why, they’re far too busy to do that. And, well, it’s the Chrome web store. Who knows what you’ll find over there? Oh, and Edge gives you more control over your data, so there.”

    Whatever the motivations of both companies, the back-and-forth, tit-for-tat needs to stop. Dragging users back to the ‘90s-style browser wars that emphasized protecting turf over supporting standards is a losing recipe for everyone involved—especially the end user.

  • Chrome Is Now the Most Popular Browser in the U.S.

    Back in May of 2012, Google’s Chrome browser overtook Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser and became the most popular browser in the world. Now, just a little over a year later, Chrome has finally topped Internet Explorer in the United States.

    As of June, 2013, Chrome is the most used browser in the U.S. The news comes to us from StatCounter, who just published their Internet Wars Report for the past year. It appears that Chrome took most of its users from Internet Explorer, but also sucked a few away from Mozilla’s Firefox.

    “In the United States, IE lost the number one spot in terms of internet usage for the first time in June 2013. Chrome has now taken the number one spot in the US at 34.02% (up from 23.84% 12 months ago). Over the same time frame IE has declined to 32.46% (from 40.89%). Firefox has also lost share in the US, down from 19.83% to 16.86%,” says StatCounter.

    That means that in the last year, Chrome has seen a 42.7% increase from where it was in July of 2012.

    Chrome continues to dominate worldwide, only increasing its lead over Internet Explorer in the past year:

    In other news from StatCounter’s report, Samsung has passed Apple in terms of worldwide mobile internet usage for the first time. Google still dominates the search game, with Bing only making marginal gains in the past year.

  • Are Google Chrome’s Stats Inflated?

    Are Google Chrome’s Stats Inflated?

    Earlier this week, it was announced that Google Chrome had overtaken Internet Explorer as the number one browser in use, and the world rejoiced. However, thanks to the grey area surrounding prerendered web pages, these results may be somewhat dubious.

    As pointed out by PC Mag, via the Windows Internet Explorer blog, the site responsible for the Google Chrome claim was StatCounter, however, when factoring the results, StatCounter included prerendered pages in their results, something Net Applications, another site that tracks these trends, does not.

    With that in mind, Net Applications’ results concerning browser share is a little different. Let’s compare the two. First, StatCounter:

    Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Market Share


    Now for Net Applications:


    As you can see, Net Applications still has Microsoft’s browser as the leader, by a wide margin. Furthermore, StatCounter has decided to stop counting prerendered pages, which is indicated by a mouseover message, which we’ve screencapped:

    StatCounter Disclaimer
    Click for full size image

    For those of you who can’t read small web print and didn’t click the image enlarge link, the text says that due to requests, StatCounter will be adjusting their browser stats to no longer include prerendered pages in the Google Chrome browser. These changes will be reflected from counts beginning on May 1, 2012. Currently, these counts are not viewable as of this moment.

    You can find out more about StatCounter’s position in their FAQ.

    With that in mind, prerendered pages doesn’t exactly explain why StatCounter’s count for IE is much less (32 percent) than Net Applications, which has IE with 54 percent of the browser share. According to the Microsoft blog post, this is due to “geoweighting browser usage baded on real world internet populations.” This topic is the subject of much scrutiny in their post, but suffice to say, after the geoweighting is factored in–something StatCounter does not do–StatCounter’s share for Internet Explorer increases to 44.6 percent, which is much closer to the Net Applications report.

    How about adding a curveball to these proceedings? Another trusted web resource, W3 Schools, also keeps browser stats of their own, which are apparently based on visitors to the W3Schools.com website. Observe the disparity between theirs and other services:

    April 2012 browser statistics:

    Internet Explorer – 18.3 percent
    Firefox – 35.8 percent
    Chrome – 38.3 percent
    Safari – 4.5 percent
    Opera – 2.3 percent

    Based on W3Schools’ numbers, Chrome and Firefox are absolutely smashing IE, which doesn’t fit with either of the prior reports. Apparently, people who visit W3Schools.com are experienced web users who have moved on from Microsoft’s browser.

    In other news, it’s pretty weird seeing a skyscraper ad for Snorg Tees at W3Schools.com.

  • Chrome Overtakes IE as the World’s Most Used Browser

    The dethroning of Internet Explorer has been a long time coming. For years Microsoft’s browser sat at the top of the browser heap, stagnating and becoming bloated. First Netscape, and the Mozilla tried to take Internet Explorer down with good design, modulability, and other modern features. Those browsers never spread too far beyond a core of internet-savvy users, though.

    When Google launched its Chrome browser in 2008, its focus was on speed. This aimed right at the weakness of the market’s large, slow browsers. Chrome’s ease of use, combined with its automatic updating features, gave the browser an edge and propelled it into the browser wars with a fury.

    Now, Statcounter is showing that Chrome might have overtaken Internet Explorer for good. As seen above, Chrome has gained over a 10% higher share of the market since this time last year, and has done so at the expense of both Microsoft and Mozilla.

    This comes at a time when Microsoft has actually improved Internet Explorer. Microsoft’s browser now has many of the features that Chrome and Firefox sport, and its newest version is faster than previous ones. Unfortunately, the company has a hard time getting users to upgrade to newer versions of the browser. Many IT departments don’t bother with the hassle of upgrading browsers on every employee’s computer. Also, many Internet Explorer users are less computer-savvy users who simply use the browser because it came with their Windows installation. Some people still use Internet Explorer 6, an outdated, unsupported browser that doesn’t work with much of the modern web. In fact, according to StatCounter, more people use Internet Explorer 6 than use Opera or Safari 5.1.

    Take a look at StatCounter’s statistics below and see for yourself. StatCounter also keeps statistics on operating systems, search engines, social media, and more.

    Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Market Share

    (StatCounter via The Next Web)

  • Chrome To Pass Firefox By The End Of 2011

    Google’s Chrome browser is growing in popularity, and naturally that means that it’s drawing users away from the other big boys, Internet Explorer and Firefox.

    Currently, Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser by a pretty wide margin, and Mozilla’s Firefox holds a slim margin over Chrome. But according to web statistics firm StatCounter, that will change by the end of this year,

    Sometime in November or December, Chrome will overtake Firefox to become the second most popular browser in the world. In August we learned that Chrome is already in second place in the UK.

    Chrome hit a milestone in July when their market share broke the 20% barrier. As of right now, Chrome’s global share is 23.6%. That’s a few points behind Firefox’s share of 26.8%. Both are still a pretty long way from IE’s share of 41.7%.

    Here’s the thing: Chrome has increased its share 50% since January 2011 – a truly meteoric climb. During that same period, Firefox’s share has declined 13%. The intersection of these ascending and descending paths falls sometime in November. According to StatCounter, Chrome will jump to #2 in December, holding 26.6% of global use compared to Firefox’s 25.3% share.

    As you can see in the above graph, IE and Firefox are falling at a similar rate. Chrome seems to be reaping all the benefits.

    IE is the butt of a lot of jokes, that’s for sure. That’s what makes the lead image so funny – Firefox and Chrome battling it out while IE sits in the corner eating glue. But if you look at the chart, one could suggest that Firefox should be over in the corner eating glue with Internet Explorer.

    Will Chrome continue to gain in popularity and eventually pass IE? What’s your browser of choice? Let us know in the comments.

  • Google Chrome A Strong Second in UK

    Google Chrome A Strong Second in UK

    Is the popularity of Firefox waning worldwide, or is Google Chrome just that much better of a choice? As the browser wars continue, while the average computer user is still content with Microsoft’s browser, the more experienced user have created something of a battle between the two “alternative” platforms.

    In the United Kingdom, Google Chrome has positioned itself has the second most popular browser, replacing the browser that should be given credit for providing an honest-to-goodness alternative to Internet Explorer. Granted, there are other browsers besides Chrome and Firefox — waves at a still-satisfying Opera platform — but these two represent the true competition to IE, but it was Firefox who came along when the void needed filling, a fact that takes nothing away from Google Chrome’s success and capability.

    The quality of Google’s browser helps fuel its growth, which, again, has made it the second most popular browser in the land of lavish Royal Weddings and quality pints of beer. According to a report by StatCounter, Chrome captured 22 percent of UK’s web traffic, edging out its Mozilla competitor. Furthermore, the success of both Chrome and Firefox has had a severe impact in IE’s market share:

    The firm’s research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that Chrome took 22.1% of the UK market, up from 3.9% in July 2009. In the same period Microsoft’s Internet Explorer fell significantly from 61% to 46% globally and Firefox dropped slightly from 27% to 22%.

    With only 45 percent of the market in the UK, it’s becoming pretty clear that many IE users do so because it’s the only browser that comes installed on a Windows box. Once users become more experienced with their Internet travels, alternative choices when it comes to browsing are being made. No doubt, the influence of some geek friends they have and/or make play a part here too.

    Peer pressure works, even when it comes to web browsing. That said, Firefox’s five percent drop is significant as well. If the peer pressure theory has any bearing, apparently, Firefox is as cool as it once was.

    In their report, The Guardian quotes Lars Bak, a lead Chrome engineer, who credits Chrome’s speed for its success:

    “Speed is a fundamental part of it, but it’s also about the minimal design and the way it handles security. If you as a user try [to load] a webpage and it feels snappy, it’s really hard to go back. It has shown that people spend more time interacting with the web.”

    It would be interesting to see just how many people would use Internet Explorer if, when they purchased a new computer, they had a choice of browsers instead of just the default choice that is IE.

  • Firefox 4 Infographic Details First 48 Hours

    While they may never top Internet Explorer’s market share — it’s hard to top a program that comes pre-installed on all Windows-environment computers — that doesn’t mean the folks at Mozilla won’t make the most of their latest Firefox browser launch. Instead of relying simply on Internet buzz, Mozilla has been much more active with the launch of Firefox 4, embracing our desire for infographics and pretty pieces of software that track things on a global basis.

    Mozilla has show such excitement for tracking Firefox 4’s progress, they’ve produced two such pieces that keep those who monitor the browser wars abreast of, well, just about every little detail you can imagine. First, the infographic covering the first 48 hours of Firefox 4’s launch:

    Firefox Infographic
    Click for bigger image

    It should be noted that the 15.85 million downloads during the first 48 has since nearly doubled to over 26 million (courtesy of the Firefox 4 Download Stats utility, the pretty piece of software discussed earlier). Other information like total megabytes downloaded and average downloads per minute is also of note.

    However, the top country and top region seems to be conflicting; or, at least it doesn’t make much sense. With almost 5 million downloads from the US, the North American continent only 2 million more downloads to top Europe. Perhaps Canadian Internet users are afraid of how much the Firefox download would cost them in terms of bandwidth usage.

    Needless to say, after reviewing Mozilla’s information, the Firefox 4 launch has to be considered a wild success. For those interested, it can be downloaded here, and be sure to read the WebProNews review of the oft-downloaded browser.

  • Latest Google Chrome Beta is Polished for Speed

    Let the Browser Wars continue unabated!  Google Chrome saw its tenth incarnation delivered in beta format today, and the search engine company — is that even accurate anymore — is boasting about some major speed improvements for the ever-gaining Chrome browser.

    Over at the Google Chrome blog, the browsing speed improvements have been posted, and they are impressive.  However, speed isn’t the only thing Google’s excited about.  Synchronization of user information is another big component, as Google’s efforts to be the web user’s one-stop site for damn-near everything continues; not that you can fault them for this approach.

    Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft all have similar ideas.

    As for the increased browsing speed, especially in relation to Javascript and GPU-related improvements, the entry has more:

    With a new speed boost that we previewed in December, Chrome’s JavaScript engine V8 runs compute-intensive JavaScript applications even more quickly than before. In fact, this beta release sports a whopping 66% improvement on the V8 benchmark suite over our current stable release.

    This release also includes a preliminary implementation of GPU-accelerated video. Users with capable graphics hardware should see a significant decrease in CPU usage. In full screen mode, CPU usage may decrease by as much as 80%! This means better battery life so you can keep going and going like that pink bunny in the commercials.

    The Chrome developers have also introduced some other features, of which, they document in the following video:

    While I am a Chrome user, I haven’t installed the current beta, so I have no valid opinion to offer.  Unfortunately, Twitter is lacking in that regard as well.  There’re a lot of Tweets about the release, but not much reaction. One thing’s for sure, however:  The speed at which these full-version updates occur is pretty ridiculous.

    Twitter user Jeff Self (any relation to Bill?) noticed too:

    Chrome 10 is in beta now? About time, Chrome 9 is getting pretty long in the tooth. Its been out, what a month now?less than a minute ago via TweetDeckJeff Self
    JeffSelf

    The first stable edition of Chrome launched in December of 2008, which essentially makes it a 2009/first-of-the-new-year product. In two years and two months time, Google’s browser has gone through ten “new version” updates, almost five a year.

    Meanwhile, 25 years later, Windows in on version number seven — at least, if you go by their numbering system.  Many thousands of updates have happened in that quarter of a century, but the version numbers change is more infrequent.  In fact, Internet Explorer is only on its eighth edition, and that sucker’s been around since 1995. 

    Not be outdone by Google’s fast counting, Microsoft recently launched the beta version of IE 9.  Of course, by the time they get to 10, Google will probably be in the beta process of Chrome XXL.

  • Different Approaches to Internet Explorer

    As the news of Google Chrome’s increase in browser market share hit the tubes, some outlets took this as an opportunity to blast Microsoft’s ubiquitous browser, Internet Explorer.  While it’s still pretty en vogue to hate all things Microsoft; although, it feels that should be passé by now, perhaps some of the IE hate was a little forced?

    Take the following two approaches, for example.  Both of these upcoming sites reported on Google Chrome’s increase, and parlayed their post into something about Internet Explorer.  However, the approaches were distinctly different.  First we have TechRadar’s post:

    TechRadar

    See how nice it is?  Not so for The Inquirer:

    The Inquirer

    Here are two very different approaches to essentially the same story.  On one hand, you have this from The Inquirer:

    But for Microsoft and Internet Explorer, the outlook looks pretty bleak, unless the new version coming out this year really does well. Since July, Internet Exploder’s share of the browsing market has decreased from 60.74 per cent to 56 per cent in January.

    That might not sound like a lot, but it means millions of users are leaving Microsoft for other web browsers.

    Compared with TechRadar’s rosy outlook:

    Microsoft’s internet Explorer 9 beta has been downloaded 23 million times, and now accounts for 0.5 per cent of all internet users worldwide, according to Net Applications.

    Although it is still in beta – IE9 has proven a hit for Microsoft as it looks to offer a ‘more beautiful experience’.

    So what should a reader take from all of that?  Perhaps they would be smart to separate the biases out of each article and see the news for what it is:  Tons of people still use Internet Explorer — it is still the default browser on all Windows machines — but yet some web users have switched to other brands.

    Does this mean the end is nigh for Internet Explorer?

    Um, no. 

    56% of Internet traffic still uses Microsoft’s browser, compared to 44% for all the rest.  Clearly, IE isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  All it means is people have choices and some are willing to leave their comfort zone and try other options.

    On the other hand, should Microsoft enter trance-like state of “We Are the Champions” and put Internet Explorer on a “set it and forget it” status because their marketshare is so dominant?  Of course not.  It’s easy to be number one when you have a head start on the rest of the competition, but being the best and being first isn’t always a congruent avenue.