The Browser Wars:
An Appreciation
and Update
James Baker
Nearly as old as the Internet itself, the browser wars have played a major part in driving innovation on the Web. During the fierce competition between Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) during the original browser war of the mid-1990s, engineers tacked-on new features as fast as possible to attract users and gain market share. While this had the unfortunate effect of diverging from Web standards, it did lead to the creation and early adoption of features like Javascript and CSS (which power nearly all websites today).
IE won the first browser war, partly through Microsoft’s free-download strategy. Then followed a period of consolidation (or stagnation, if you prefer), with few new capabilities released on the browser or the Web. The dominance of IE was challenged in 2004 by the new Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox browser. IE began to lose market share to its young (and free) rival. Though important innovations, such as browser tabs, were introduced during this period, overall the rate of improvement for both IE and Firefox was slow.
Google Enters the Ring
Much changed in 2008, when Google entered its Chrome browser into the competition. Chrome’s very existence sparked a new browser war, as Google unveiled a strategy of releasing new versions every few months – instead of one each year or so, as Microsoft and Netscape had done. Firefox soon copied this approach (it’s currently rolling out Version 9!).
Faced with this fresh competition, IE lost ground steadily, falling below 50% market share in October 2011. In November 2011, Chrome managed to pass Firefox and become the number-two browser worldwide (after IE). Besides innovations, Chrome’s relative speed and crash-resistance have won over any number of former IE and Firefox users.
Practical Impact of the Current Browser Wars
So much for competition – how have the browser wars affected you and me? For starters, the competition has produced feature-rich browsers and, by extension, a new, “rich” Web that is becoming equally accessible to mobile users. Together with the emergence of web-based services and the "cloud," the ability of browsers to provide a good Web experience for mobile users is transforming how we interact with the Web on a daily basis.
Browser extensions/plugins/apps for Firefox and Chrome add additional functionality to your browser, and there are literally thousands of these widgets to choose from. Some of the most popular extensions include an on-demand dictionary, a download manager, a bookmark synchronizer, and a screenshot capture tool. As you scan the list of available extensions, it's likely you will find a solution for a Web-related annoyance or problem you didn't even know you had!
There is, as the iPhone commercial says, “an app for that.” Browser apps were popularized by Chrome. More powerful extensions, apps can allow you to run entire, stand-alone programs within your browser. Games such as Angry Birds or Bejeweled are two of the most popular, but full-fledged audio and photo editors, to-do lists, and mathematic tools are only some of the others available. A growing number of companies are generating their own custom apps, as much to promote their brands as to provide a handy problem-solver or amusement.
A Few Tips
A trick to increase your productivity can be to set up a separate profile in your browser (or even use a second browser) that is specialized for certain tasks. For instance, you could configure a work browser, with all the tools, extensions and bookmarks required for your job, and a personal browser, from which you post on Facebook, conduct e-commerce and catch the latest sports scores. (Such self-discipline can help keep you from hopping over to YouTube when that important report is due.)
One of the most important things you can do prior to launching a new website or web app is to test it on a variety of browsers (including mobile). Thanks to the rapid development and adoption of the HTML5 standard, today's browsers are largely compatible with one another when rendering websites.
Important differences, however, still remain – the days of having to support only IE users are gone. Now, thanks to the browser wars, three browsers -- IE, Firefox and Chrome – control the majority of the market. Opera and Apple's Safari have small slices as well. In addition, the shift toward widescreen monitors means that you need to consider how your site appears on different screen sizes as well as different resolutions. Cross-browser testing remains a must. Luckily, tools such as Browsershots or CrossBrowserTesting are available to assist you and ease the process.
Today, thanks to the ongoing browser wars, we're able to do things on the Web that we had barely dreamed of ten years ago. The good news is, having a war on means we can expect many new ideas and features to emerge from the competition. Through the struggle, the ways in which we interact with the Web, and with one another, will continue to evolve.