Talk:Browser wars

1st broswer war
First browser war is ***wrong***, that's the second browser war. The first one was called the Mosaic Wars, and Netscape won that one (IIRC, this was around NS 2.0 or 1.1N) and some of the competitors were TEXT-based browsers 70.51.8.158 (talk) 09:18, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Based on zero-based computer counting, the zero-th is Mosaic; what follow is #0001 (which some might choose to call first). Pi314m (talk) 00:41, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Google Chrome not developed to be the most used browser
"Their goal is to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox and eventually become the most used web browser." is a wrong statement as Google doesn't mention that anywhere on its site about why it developed Google Chrome.

""We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path. We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others - and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.""

Hence i am removing the same -  Đõc §aмέέЯ   10:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. I think that of course google is trying to make theirs the most used browser. It may not be their explicit and stated goal, but still, as it said in TechRepublic, they don't want to rely on the continued goodnature of IE and Mozilla. Google would be ecstatic if everyone on earth used their browser, as would every company developing their browser. Ever additional person who uses chrome is an additional person who is using all of google's services. By the way, Firefox ROCKS! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lunixer (talk • contribs) 00:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

** Don’t you think this doesn’t even count as WP:NOR? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldosfan (talk • contribs) 03:58, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think this article CAN be neutral
Hello to all.

My question is, is there ANY way to make this article meet neutrality standards??

Honestly, the content of this article is such that it is nearly impossible to talk in neutrality. Everybody has their opinion on this subject, and it is pretty much impossible to set aside your prejudices, no matter how hard you try. It seems that the person that wrote this article is clearly pro-IE. He/she/it spends at least 1/2 the article talking about Internet Explorer's total dominance. Just slightly prejudiced? Nameless9123 (talk) 19:35, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, if s/he\it spent half the article complaining about IE's dominance, or on the other hand lauding IE for it's dominance, that would not be neutral. Netscape self destructed and a rather singed Mozilla emerged from the flames. That IE became dominant in the meantime is a fact of life. The market share attrition rate of IE is also a fact of life that is even more prominant in the article. This much is neutral. However, the author blames Microsoft for doing things to cause the demise of Netscape. Is that neutral? Netscape failed to adhere to external specifications (such as CSS), and that and not Microsoft is what ultimately sent them packing. Ultimately it is the issue of standards compliance in particular, which is driving the present attrition rate of IE's market share, because developers are realising that their market share depends a great deal on coverage - and coverage is governed by standards. To me, this is neutral. To someone with an axe to grind, it may be positively actionable. This leaves of with the question of factual accuracy. When an article is reduced to the bare facts, with neither omission, repetition, nor spin, it cannot be other than neutral, no matter who or how many claim it isn't.58.111.225.252 (talk) 10:48, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. The Browser_wars section is now anti-IE, as it has omits any mentions of Netscape's frequent crashes, buggy features, and inability to adopt new standards like CSS. Instead it blames the problem on Microsoft's dominance in the OS market and resources, and allocates 1/4 of the section to the anti-trust court case. It is true that Microsoft had those advantages, but part of Netscape's demise was self-inflicted. In order for this section to be neutral, it needs to address both perspectives. --  chulk90 / discuss / contributions 01:58, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Monoculture for worms?
"The near-universal adoption of Internet Explorer has also created a monoculture which has widened the damage done by computer worms, which exploit software vulnerabilities to propagate themselves. The more machines exposing a given vulnerability, the more easily a worm will propagate."

Given the fact that there has yet to be any significant IE "worm", does this really do the article justice? Blaster and Sasser spread without IE. Nearly every definition of the term "worm" indicates compromising a large number of machines without the users having to do anything.

The spread of worms is facilitated most by allowing applications to masquerade as documents. Most exploits are based on the inability of users to quarantine active content prior to scanning for viruses as virus scanners only work if the virus is old enough to be catalogued. Few worms by comparison depend on browser specific bugs. Non-Microsoft browsers that do not check the Windows Internet Security settings in the registry prior to turning on Java and plug-ins also demonstrate serious security flaws that result from a failure to fully comply with external specification. There is plenty of blame for all concerned. Security issues have more to do with the fact that today's developer's are far too arrogant to check to see if what they are doing has been done before and find our what the problems were - before going ahead and repeating the screw-ups of history for the umpteen-millionth time... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.111.225.252 (talk) 08:28, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Hyperbole
From the Consequences section:

"Moreover, this major security hole constitutes the worst of the browser wars legacy. It is a veritable unexploded shell that remains buried in every browser on the market."

This strikes me as very unencyclopedic language, in fact it's sheer hyperbole. There's more examples through the article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.108.106.146 (talk) 12:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * From where I'm sitting, hyperbole is just one of the symptoms of this thing being written as though it were some sort of hagiography that's just poorly constructed all around. From the introduction: "the competition between market-dominating Netscape Navigator and its eventual defeat by Microsoft Internet Explorer" — if you took this article as written then you'd believe that web browsers are sentient. In addition, the whole thing seems to be written by someone with an adolescent obsession with military metaphors and is full of self-repetitious sentences like "In 1993 more browsers were released - Cello, Arena, and Lynx also came out. " — 86.175.27.255 (talk) 22:18, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Removed paragraph from Browser Wars 1, 'Consequences'
I have removed this paragraph, having first tried to edit it and then to find some (any) verification for the points raised. Apart from the spelling, it used 'statistics' that don't seem to exist, emotive, unencyclopedic language about 'unexploded shells' and was completely uncited.

--Nigelj (talk) 06:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Some explanation of why this is significant
To people unfamiliar with the topic, it may be beneficial to briefly explain in the first paragraph why this is significant. Something along the lines of "Web browsers are the most widely used category of software." or something along those lines. I'll leave it to someone with better ideas to actually implement. Dpaanlka (talk) 15:45, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

mosaic wars
I readded the tag for the pre browser wars/mosaic wars. This section tag may be incorrect, but the fact is there: totally the story is missing, there was a mosaic war (and it was so called!), there were ~120 mosaic derivates (and one won: netscape) and so on. I think that I was the previously tagging person: I would and I will fix/expand it, but at the moment I am expanding historic browser articles from the time between 1992-1997 with user smallman12q. mabdul 21:27, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

'Dethrone'
Deleting and then reverting out referenced stuff you don't like is not the best way to reach a consensus and a balanced article. User:JTSchreiber, I and others need to discuss the best way to include comments made fairly widely, and exemplified by geeksmack.net, regarding the very temporary 'dethroning' of 'Microsoft and IE7' recently. The article makes it clear that this was temporary and was due to easily explicable factors, but I still think it makes a good point about the current 'browser wars' that these points are still being amplified and echoed around the web. If they don't think that the point is made fairly (and I have moved it closer to the exact wording in that source today) then this is the place to discuss what they see as the problem and what to do about it; not by starting a revert war.

I think that rather thank hog-binding the wording in the article to that in that one source, we should give a better impression of how this brief event was reported more widely, maybe by finding other sources and agreeing a more general (though admittedly partisan) wording. The whole point about a 'war' is that there are at least two partisan sides, so when we report on it, we have to give both sides' views - even if one of them seems a bit silly, or was only very short-lived in relevance. Reporting a brief skirmish in the 'browser wars' without really mentioning the non-Microsoft side's position at the time would be a bit strange. --Nigelj (talk) 10:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You wrote, "The whole point about a 'war' is that there are at least two partisan sides, so when we report on it, we have to give both sides' views... Reporting a brief skirmish in the 'browser wars' without really mentioning the non-Microsoft side's position at the time would be a bit strange."


 * That's not what I did. Even in the version which you reverted, the following text explains the pro-Firefox point-of-view:

"During December 2009 and January 2010, StatCounter reported that its statistics indicated that Firefox 3.5 was the most popular browser, when counting individual browser versions, passing Internet Explorer 7 and 8 by a small margin.[19][20][21] This is the first time a global statistic has reported that a non-Internet Explorer browser version has exceeded the top Internet Explorer version in usage share since the fall of Netscape Navigator. This feat"
 * Are you counting this material as pro-IE? If so, please explain why.


 * If and when you try to find other sources to make a more general statement about pro-Firefox opinions, please keep in mind WP:ASSERT and WP:UNDUE. When you move beyond simple analysis of statistics (which browser version is most used according to a particular source) to statements about the meaning and implications of those statistics ("dethrone", etc.), you are talking about opinions that need to be attributed to their source in the text of the article, not in the reference alone, per WP:ASSERT. Unless the wording is general enough to cover each of the sources individually, it cannot be applied to all of the sources.


 * Also, the current material which is considered pro-IE is not very opinionated, that is, it doesn't move particularly far beyond what the statistics say. If you put in more facts about strong pro-Firefox opinions, along with more pro-Firefox references, that would be giving undue weight to Firefox, and more sources and facts about strong pro-IE opinions would need to be added to balance this out. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 22:02, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Internet Explorer 9?
Internet Explorer 9 seems relevant to the Second Browser Wars section. To me, it more or less represents Microsoft's effort to match the technical progress the other browser vendors and WHATWG have made. That might not be the neutral, non-original-research phrasing of it -- I'd have to scour the Web for what widely read sources say about it, I guess -- but clearly IE9 is *something*, certainly as much of a notable event as the IE7 to IE8 upgrade. The prerelease history of other browsers is noted (e.g., "In 2003, Apple had begun work on a new browser...") so the fact that IE9 isn't a final release doesn't mean we can't mention Microsoft's work so far.

IE9 also points to future directions for the "wars" like hardware acceleration -- acceleration is one of the top things the IE Team has discussed on their blog, and Apple and Google both talk about current and future GPU work on their browsers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.121.114.161 (talk) 04:36, 21 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Addendum: I think we're spending too few words on mobile browsers relative to their current importance and projected growth. I also wonder if info on browser history/competitive browser history is scattered among too many articles (this article, Web browser, and the various stories on particular browsers, companies, and standards like HTML5). 67.121.114.161 (talk) 04:42, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Be bold! and expand the article - on the other side: IE9 has 0% market share because it isn't released! mabdul 09:21, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Infobox military conflict
I see that the {infobox military conflict} was removed in edit. While this clearly isn't a military conflict, I think that the infobox worked very well here as a metaphor. Do we need to be so numbingly literal, just here, just this time? --Nigelj (talk) 18:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I would also readd the infobox. It is only the naming of the box that do a confusion. mabdul 21:36, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I like metaphors, but I'm not so sure that this metaphor is appropriate. It suggests that Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera are allied against IE, which I doubt is true! Do the sources paint the same picture? Melchoir (talk) 08:02, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Melchoir. It's not IE vs. all other browsers. Google Chrome is encroaching on Firefox's market share, and Apple is very belligerent towards all browsers, and even threatened to privatize WebKit, on which Chrome is based. --   chulk90 / discuss / contributions  06:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Third war
With the current running of ads by Google on major programs in America such as American Idol and 60 Minutes it seems to me like Google has become more aggressive in their goal of having people using Chrome. Although I know I might sound very POV, isn't it possible that we are seeing the beginning of a third browser war between the major players Firefox, Explorer and Chrome? Thanks --Camilo Sanchez (talk) 08:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Belligerents
Its not all other browsers vs IE, they are fighting each other too, Chrome vs Mozilla for example — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.71.106.255 (talk) 16:01, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed, but it's also not Firefox and Opera versus Chrome and Safari versus IE is it? Template:Infobox military conflict seems inappropriate here. 2011 Wisconsin protests had the same problem, but somebody made a new template called Template:Infobox civil conflict. However, that doesn't work too well here either. If nobody objects I will delete it, as it doesn't really add much except the image, which we can keep. –CWenger ( ^ •  @ ) 00:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

browser wars
Why are the browser wars misnumbered? The "first" is the second, etc. The one before the first doesn't have a number. Shouldn't the numbers be reformated to match the first, second, third wars, instead of Mosaic, First, Second? Browsers existed before Microsoft started in MSIE. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 11:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No, they aren't misnumbered, the truth is that there were no Mosaic wars but only incruent confrontations among first browsers who struggled a bit to demonstrate their best; the fact that, till 1995, behind these products there was no big private Company but only research organizations, universities or small companies and the fact that at the beginning the share market was increasing at a very fast pace (so that there was space for every kind of product in its initial development stage) classifies these struggles as small or micro battles, not wars. ade56facc (talk) 22:27, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Konqueror
I love how Konqueror gets a passing reference at the start, and from there on depraved mac fanbois shoot sticky wads of iGoo all over themselves talking about Safari and webkit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.146.34.40 (talk) 04:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

'Race to HTML5' - what's the point?
I don't see the purpose of the section Browser wars in its present form. It appears simply to be a list of version numbers and release dates for various browsers. Without some well-sourced prose about the subject of the title, and some narrative for the reader to follow, there is no purpose to this in this article. I think the same goes for the following section, 'In development'. This article is not a place for browsers to advertise and provide links to their latest releases. Unless someone can improve the sections, and convince me otherwise, I intend to remove these sections soon. I may try to find something about a purported browser war for HTML5 going on now, to replace the lists, but I'd appreciate some help finding such a source. --Nigelj (talk) 20:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Small edit
I made a small change to one of the sections in the article. The rest of the section is a chronological list of events, starting with the date they happened. The apple part started with a date in non-chronological order, so i moved the relevant,chronologically correct, date to the beginning of that part.

just wanted to explain my change in case someone was wondering why. 50.73.95.156 (talk) 18:16, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Someone reverted my edit, and i do understand and agree with their rationale. Instead of my edit, would someone who has a bit more time on their hands mind changing the phrasing of that apple related part? I get that it flows better the other way, and I still think it feels weird jumping to a 2002 date out of the blue and then immediately jumping back to the continued chronological structure; so i think it would be better if that part were re-written to flow well AND start with the chronologically relevant date. 50.73.95.156 (talk) 18:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi, 50.73.95.156. It was me who reverted you. I also just moved your new comments to the bottom of the Talk page (where we normally put them. I'll have a good look at the point you raise. --Nigelj (talk) 18:58, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I've had a go in this edit. The whole paragraph was fairly hard to parse, so I've tried to shorten the sentences and make the steps clearer. What do you think? --Nigelj (talk) 19:21, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

That looks really nice. Thanks for doing that. --The Great and Powerful Qbr12 (talk) 12:52, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

(50.73.95.156 is The Great and Powerful Qbr12 by the way.)

Penguins use Firefox, seriously
I noticed that on the Marketing via Continent map, it shows Antartica using mainly Firefox. Is this a fact, or was it just overseen rdococ... (talk) 12:47, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 * There are a few people in Antarctica too, on the research stations. I guess they've got Internet, too. It's not as primitive there as it used to be during the times of Amundsen and Scott. --Maxl (talk) 19:57, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Question about statistics used
Just out of curiosity, why is the page using a source that admits that it goes by page views (statcounter, according to their FAQ: "We base our stats on page views (and not unique visitors)- we feel that this gives the fairest approximation of internet usage."), instead of one that goes by number of individual users (Net Market Share, say)? Wouldn't it be more encyclopedic to show how many people use each bowser instead of relying on how much each bowser is used?108.85.149.233 (talk) 07:04, 15 July 2014 (UTC)


 * IMO, it reflects what browsers people use. Someone may use Internet Explorer at home for 90% of their browsing, but Firefox at work. If you try to measure users, you presumably give them both 1 "user" point, which doesn't seem like a good idea (although conversely, you could argue them to be separate users). As per StatCounter in your quote: "we feel that this gives the fairest approximation of internet usage". Note that the article does refer to Net Applications a few times, and I don't think there's too large a bias on StatCounter. —WOFall (talk) 15:58, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Opera Mini on Nintendo DS?
I was reading this article, and it says Opera Mini was on the Nintendo Wii and DS. Doesn't it mean 3DS instead of DS?--184.17.173.136 (talk) 18:41, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Nope, in fact the Internet Browser (Nintendo 3DS) is NetFront based. However it's incorrect to use the name "Opera Mini" for the Opera-based Nintendo browsers, so I changed that. —WOFall (talk) 20:06, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Confused about the map
Is it just me or there is a very large difference between 2 world maps in this article? The top one shows Firefox as a dominant browser in Africa, while the second map it is Opera. And why does it have 2 maps anyway?red_romanov (talk) 07:05, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It appears that a discussion about this went on here: Template talk:Countries by most used web browser. I haven't checked anyone's figures, but I found this interesting: "I think the problem is you are selecting "Browser Desktop & Mobile" in the source (Statcounter). If you select Desktop only, then you get a result like the Commons version (Africa dominated by orange Firefox). But if you include mobile browsers you get a sea of red in Africa as many are browsing on cheap feature phones which use Opera Mini to compress data usage. Really the caption of the Commons image should specify whether it is referring to desktop browser usage or all browser usage (talk) 23:18, 20 July 2014 (UTC)" --Nigelj (talk) 08:17, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

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Arrival of Edge and death of Presto marks a Third War
The second browser war is about the slow decline and death of IE at the hands of a group of smaller W3C standards-compliant browsers. The current period is distinctly different: no small browser engines like Presto remain, IE is nowhere to be seen and instead there is fierce competition between the giants in Microsoft, Google and Mozilla as they race to implement new standards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Historyneverlies2 (talk • contribs) 17:14, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Motives
I think it would be good to add a 'Motives' section to this article to explain why all these organisations compete to create the most popular web browser. Ultimately, what do they get out of it? All major browsers are free so how to they make money (which I assume is the ultimate motivating factor) for their owners? Chimpanzee Talk 11:13, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

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Wipe out mention of brave
Althought it is mentioned negatively, its mention at the end of the article seems like promotion. --Jakeukalane (talk) 21:25, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Biased towards Firefox
The article seems sort of biased favoring Firefox and over emphasizing its achievements in the second browser wars, even adding picture of Firefox's search engine. Chrome entered later in 2008 but by 2012 overtook Firefox as the dominant browser yet little emphasis have been given on its success and features. Also 60 % in 2017 is a bigger achievement than IE's 90 % in 2001, in 2017 a lot more countries and a larger population over the world had access to the internet compared to 2001. Despite Chrome being the clear winner it lacks sufficient focus unlike with IE the winner of the first war. More information on Chrome's success should have been included on the second war section. The least I could do was to add a picture of Chrome. Dilbaggg (talk) 19:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)