The Back Alley Archives

The new browser wars

Apple’s entry comes by way of Safari for Windows, a version of the default browser on the Mac since 2003. The Apple Web site claims Safari for Windows is twice as fast as IE 7 and 1.6 times faster than Mozilla Firefox. It also has the features any modern browser should have, including tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking and strong security.

Suddenly, it seems, the browser wars have turned into a three-corner fight.

Veterans of the first war will remember how pioneer and market leader Netscape was eventually crushed in the second half of the 1990s by the 500-pound gorilla from Redmond, Washington. Faced with a competitor that commanded 80 percent of the market, Microsoft did what any self-respecting monopoly would do—it used its dominance in one segment—operating systems—to improve its standing in another area where it was weak. In a masterstroke of marketing, Microsoft bundled its inferior Internet Explorer browser with every copy of Windows, thus ensuring that more people would use it anyway. Netscape did nothing to help its own cause when it released later versions of its Navigator browser that simply did not measure up. By the time Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4.0, the war was all but settled in its favor.

I find Todd's avy disturbing.