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https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2017/11/21/mozilla-market-share/
When Firefox was introduced in 2004, it was designed to be a lean and optimized web browser, based on the bloated code from the Mozilla Suite. Between 2004 and 2009, many considered Firefox to be the best web browser, since it was faster, more secure, offered tabbed browsing and was more customizable through extensions than Microsoft's Internet Explorer. When Chrome was introduced in 2008, it took many of Firefox's best ideas and improved on them. Since 2010, Chrome has eaten away at Firefox's market share, relegating Firefox to a tiny niche of free software enthusiasts and tinkerers who like the customization of its XUL extensions.
According to StatCounter, Firefox's market share of web browsers has fallen from 31.8% in December 2009 to just 6.1% today. Firefox can take comfort in the fact that it is now virtually tied with its former arch-nemesis, Internet Explorer and its variants. All of Microsoft's browsers only account for 6.2% of current web browsing according to StatCounter. Microsoft has largely been replaced by Google, whose web browsers now controls 56.5% of the market. Even worse, is the fact that the WebKit engine used by Google now represents over 83% of web browsing, so web sites are increasingly focusing on compatibility with just one web engine. While Google and Apple are more supportive of W3C and open standards than Microsoft was in the late 90s, the web is increasingly being monopolized by one web engine and two companies, whose business models are not always based on the best interests of users or their rights.
(Score: 2) by TGV on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:52AM (1 child)
Speed improvements follow the law of diminishing returns: there's only so much that can be improved in Chrome/Chromium without a really big project. There comes a point when it just becomes too expensive to improve another 2% here and there. Google has deeper pockets than Mozilla, that's for sure, so perhaps they won't rest before Firefox has been beaten into a pulp, but my bet is still that Chrome someday will have some private extensions to HTML/Javascript that allow it to run Google Docs and Gmail better and faster than other browsers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @04:14AM
In my experience, Google doesn't seem to be getting much for their money. Chrome remains incredibly unstable and they don't seem to mind breaking the web like in the good ole days when MS and Netscape were competing to figure out who could wreck up the net better.