Google's Chrome Becomes Web 'Gatekeeper' and Rivals Complain

'Few home-grown Google products have been as successful as Chrome.
Launched in 2008, it has more than 63% of the market and about 70% on
desktop computers, according to StatCounter data. Mozilla's Firefox is
far behind, while Apple's Safari is the default browser for iPhones.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Edge browsers are punchlines. From a
report:

Google won by offering consumers a fast, customizable browser for
free, while embracing open web standards. Now that Chrome is the clear
leader, it controls how the standards are set. That's sparking concern
Google is using the browser and its Chromium open-source underpinnings
to elbow out online competitors and tilt entire industries in its
favor. Most major browsers are now built on the Chromium software code
base that Google maintains. Opera, an indie browser that's been used
by techies for years, swapped its code base for Chromium in 2013. Even
Microsoft is making the switch this year. That creates a snowball
effect, where fewer web developers build for niche browsers, leading
those browsers to switch over to Chromium to avoid getting left
behind.

This leaves Chrome's competitors relying on Google employees who do
most of the work to keep Chromium software code up to date. Chromium
is open source, so anyone can suggest changes to it, but the majority
of programmers who approve contributions are Google employees, and any
major disagreements get settled by a small circle of senior Google
employees. Chrome is so ascendant these days that web developers often
don't bother to test their sites on competing browsers. Google
services including YouTube, Docs and Gmail sometimes don't work as
well on rival browsers, sending frustrated users to Chrome. Instead of
just another ship slicing through the sea of the web, Chrome is
becoming the ocean.'

-- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/19/05/28/1845238

Cheers, Peter
-- 
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
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