That was great, except everyone just installed chrome because the website google told them to and put them right back in the exact monopoly position that allowed IE6 to stagnate.
If you use chrome still, you are literally part of the problem. I still think Mozilla, just barely treading into the advertising waters, is probably a better option than the literal advertising panopticon that owns our world and data.
> That was great, except everyone just installed chrome [...]
Just to note the Acid 2 test was released April 2005 [1], and Google Chrome from December 2008 [2]. That's about 3,5 years.
At some point (around these mentioned years), Mozilla Firefox had a very good market share since MSIE's was dwindling, Safari's was minor (no iOS yet), and Google Chrome did not yet exist. Those were the days ;)
Also, Safari only exists due to Konqueror (and its dependencies), and Chrome only exists due to Safari, and Konqueror.
Safari exists because Apple wanted a Browser they control. They absolutely would have had the capability to create a rendering engine from scratch - KHTML already existing was just a minor convenience.
> everyone just installed chrome because the website google told them to
I believe we actually went this way because all the techies adopted it first, not because it was some evil overlord that told everyone to. As a teenager, I installed it for some of my family because it had fewer knobs to push than Firefox at the time and it was faster at the time so that was cool as well (especially because they usually had older devices). Can't install toolbars in there etc. Then came Google's cross-site tracking by tricking users into logging into the browser and such. I kept using Firefox myself because I was used to the dev tools, theme customizability, and powerful add-ons, but it's not like I didn't contribute to the problem
That said, I also still wonder how (as you hint at) them advertising a product of theirs on the search engine homepage, a legal monopoly afaik, is not abuse of market power to illegally create a second monopoly. Firefox and any legit browser vendor who asks should be able to get the same ad on there for the same duration (years iirc, perhaps on and off), prominence, freedom of wording, etc. There is certainly an advertising aspect to get the last bit of the market, create a real brand name ("oh yeah I know that icon" when it's shown in the ads, not just know that button on your screen as "the internet"), but the first >50%... I don't know
"If you choose the slightly less evil browser you are literally part of the problem".
Yeah no, both are shit. Mozilla is also literally an advertising company now besides being almost exclusively funded by one.
If Mozilla wants people to choose Firefox over other browsers based on principles they first need to stick to principles themselves. Why are you asking people to give up anything (even if it's just a small amount of convenience) for a company that is run pretty much the same way as the alternatives, run by a CEO whining about a salary of millions per year not being enough. They made their bed.
If you use chrome still, you are literally part of the problem. I still think Mozilla, just barely treading into the advertising waters, is probably a better option than the literal advertising panopticon that owns our world and data.