> I worked among people that used Mac and Unix back then and most of them were anti-Microsoft zealots or brainwashed by the anti-Microsoft zealots.
Explain Edge on non-Windows platforms today then. A mobile version exists, but so few people use it that it ends up inside "Other" in most charts, behind such well-respected alternatives as the house-brand browsers of various phone OEMs that bundle them by default. Windows Phone no longer has a meaningful user base, so this is from much the same population who use Windows on the desktop.
> Furthermore, IE was the default on OSX from 1998-2003. How'd that work out?
Netscape was disbanded in 2003, so apparently pretty effective.
> Google pushing Chrome from google.com is nowhere near the same thing as "being the default browser".
The equivalent of a billion dollar marketing campaign will raise usage of something independent of whether it's really any better than the competition. Otherwise Coca Cola has been wasting a lot of money on advertising.
> It doesn't explain the rise of Firefox at all.
You have to be the default and be "good enough." It doesn't have to be better but it can't be a lot worse. IE during the rise of Firefox had claimed victory and given up, so it was stagnant and no longer good enough.
> Tech circles is where all this starts.
Somehow Samsung has higher mobile browser market share than Microsoft and Mozilla put together.
> It's a worse browser by just about every metric.
Browsers are so complicated and there are so many possible metrics that we could have that debate for ten years and not cover half of it, but suffice it to say that some people disagree with you:
Explain Edge on non-Windows platforms today then. A mobile version exists, but so few people use it that it ends up inside "Other" in most charts, behind such well-respected alternatives as the house-brand browsers of various phone OEMs that bundle them by default. Windows Phone no longer has a meaningful user base, so this is from much the same population who use Windows on the desktop.
> Furthermore, IE was the default on OSX from 1998-2003. How'd that work out?
Netscape was disbanded in 2003, so apparently pretty effective.
> Google pushing Chrome from google.com is nowhere near the same thing as "being the default browser".
The equivalent of a billion dollar marketing campaign will raise usage of something independent of whether it's really any better than the competition. Otherwise Coca Cola has been wasting a lot of money on advertising.
> It doesn't explain the rise of Firefox at all.
You have to be the default and be "good enough." It doesn't have to be better but it can't be a lot worse. IE during the rise of Firefox had claimed victory and given up, so it was stagnant and no longer good enough.
> Tech circles is where all this starts.
Somehow Samsung has higher mobile browser market share than Microsoft and Mozilla put together.
> It's a worse browser by just about every metric.
Browsers are so complicated and there are so many possible metrics that we could have that debate for ten years and not cover half of it, but suffice it to say that some people disagree with you:
https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+firefox+better