Remember the browser wars?
Originally sent as a newsletter.
Written in 2020, 6 years ago. Tools and advice may have moved on since.
Hey,
Do you remember the browser wars?
Do you know who won?
It’s Google.
Even if you are not using Chrome, you are most likely using Chrome!
How can that be?
Almost all browsers are based on the chromium browser engine¹.
The browser engine is the most fundamental part of a browser.
It’s the cake; everything else is just glazing and decorations!
Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Chrome are all chromium based.
Why am I talking about browsers this fine Sunday?
Because The Mozilla Foundation just laid off about a quarter of its workforce (250 people). And this has spurred concerns about the future of Firefox: their browser that is not chromium based.
If Firefox moves to chromium or ends up lagging behind when new standards emerge, we are essentially left with two options: The chromium-based browsers (Google) or Safari (Apple).
Will this spur another browser war?
And will developers again have to make cater to vendor-specific implementations as we did for Internet Explorer way back when Microsoft thought they could dictate the standard?
Until next week, Benedicte
Footnotes
¹ While fact-checking, I learned that the browser engine is actually called Blink, and Chromium is more of a full browser that others can build off of.
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