Ironically, we already had that - Microsoft’s first version of Edge was using their own engine. On release, it had the highest W3C compatibility score.
Google started shitting on it (including things like serving clear HTML version of Gmail because “the browser is outdated” if it detected the Edge user agent) and massive self-delusion campaigns of “Edge is just Internet Explorer” eventually killed the thing and forced MS to switch to Chromium.
I have Ladybird installed and I check it out every now and then, but I honestly doubt that a bunch of random developers will succeed where Microsoft failed. Unless Cloudflare somehow chips in and forces Google’s hand into compatibility, but I don’t know if even they are big enough to do that.
Microsoft - in theory - had the finances to push their browser to peoples homes. Be it by baking it in to Windows, by ad campaigns, etc., etc. And they still lost to Google’s control over the Web.
Ladybird, by comparison, is an obscure no-name product, being made by a controversial figure, with (relatively to MS) zero ability to market itself to the wider audience. All Google has to do is make their products completely inoperable under Ladybird and, other than some extremely committed power-users who want to “de-google” their lives, nobody will use it.
Ladybird is not threatened to be killed by whatever anybody but the developers do.
It absolutely is. If Google forces incompatibility on it (like it did with Edge) ordinary users won’t switch. Because the majority of ordinary users are still deep in the ecosystem.
All it takes is for Google to block high quality streaming on YouTube and the browser will never go outside of 2-3% market share.
What’s not bad? Ladybird sitting at floor-leves of market share?
If we want to threaten the status quo in any way, it absolutely is. Firefox has 2.26% and - in terms of defining standards or forcing changes upon Chromium - it’s 100% irrelevant.
Ironically, we already had that - Microsoft’s first version of Edge was using their own engine. On release, it had the highest W3C compatibility score.
Google started shitting on it (including things like serving clear HTML version of Gmail because “the browser is outdated” if it detected the Edge user agent) and massive self-delusion campaigns of “Edge is just Internet Explorer” eventually killed the thing and forced MS to switch to Chromium.
I have Ladybird installed and I check it out every now and then, but I honestly doubt that a bunch of random developers will succeed where Microsoft failed. Unless Cloudflare somehow chips in and forces Google’s hand into compatibility, but I don’t know if even they are big enough to do that.
Ladybird doesn’t have to be profitable and the org cannot be bought.
Not what I meant.
Microsoft - in theory - had the finances to push their browser to peoples homes. Be it by baking it in to Windows, by ad campaigns, etc., etc. And they still lost to Google’s control over the Web.
Ladybird, by comparison, is an obscure no-name product, being made by a controversial figure, with (relatively to MS) zero ability to market itself to the wider audience. All Google has to do is make their products completely inoperable under Ladybird and, other than some extremely committed power-users who want to “de-google” their lives, nobody will use it.
You are right, but as you noticed, we don’t argue the same thing.
Ladybird is not threatened to be killed by whatever anybody but the developers do.
It absolutely is. If Google forces incompatibility on it (like it did with Edge) ordinary users won’t switch. Because the majority of ordinary users are still deep in the ecosystem.
All it takes is for Google to block high quality streaming on YouTube and the browser will never go outside of 2-3% market share.
That’s not bad.
What’s not bad? Ladybird sitting at floor-leves of market share?
If we want to threaten the status quo in any way, it absolutely is. Firefox has 2.26% and - in terms of defining standards or forcing changes upon Chromium - it’s 100% irrelevant.
To threaten the status quo it’s bad but to have fun programming a browser it’s not bad.