I loved those screenshots from my youth, but my smile quickly faded when each of the "bad stuff" Microsoft used to do back then are currently embedded into every aspect of our digital landscape by ... Google, of course! Look at them covering all their bases and making sure anything that isn't Chrome doesn't feel up to task ... or just simply making sure that one way or another, you end up seeing their ads.
My pet theory is that all the people responsible for the things Microsoft did in the 1990s and 2000s moved to Google. Hence Chrome being the new IE, dreadful product names and endless product churn and rebranding. Google must have gone through at least as many chat apps as Microsoft went through media stores. Google Talk, Chat, Messages, Duet, Allo, Hangouts, Meet, Meet (original) vs. Microsoft PlaysForSure, Zune, Media Player, Live Music, Xbox music…
Hardly comparable. IE was as influential as it was due to its massive market share (95% at its peak). Even now Safari is only 13% on desktop and 25% on mobile. Chrome is at 61% and 65% respectively.
Chrome is the new IE because it can set de-facto standards due to its market size.
Because ‘Works best with Chrome’ is the new ‘Works best with IE’. It’s such a monoculture that sites don’t bother to test on anything else.
Because Google takes a leaf from Microsoft’s playbook and degrades performance of its platforms on other browsers, e.g. Firefox and YouTube.
Because Google have a fundamental conflict of interest between allowing an open web browser and making money from advertising. See the upcoming changes to block ad blockers and initiatives like FLoC. The more Google need to show growth and squeeze out more profit, the tighter things will get locked up.
Saying Safari is the new IE is just saying it doesn’t support all the features you’d like, while ignoring what made IE IE, which was its overwhelming market power.
