The Browser Duopoly — Chrome vs. Firefox
How many browsers can you name?
There seems to be a plethora of browsers out there, like Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave, and Opera just to name a few! But in reality, all of these browsers are really just two: Chromium and Firefox.
What’s Going On?
A browser is a piece of software that plays a crucial role in your Internet experience! At its core, a browser is responsible for loading web pages in a graphical interface for you to interact with. This part of a browser is the browser engine.
Browsers also provide a multitude of other features such as saving your bookmarks, recording your history, and storing your login info just to name a few!
A browser engine is actually very complicated to develop from scratch! That’s why most browsers don’t make their own and instead build upon an existing browser engine.
The duopoly of browser engines is Chromium and Firefox. First, Chromium is the open source software that makes up Google’s signature browser Chrome! Meanwhile, Firefox is the independent open source browser brought to you by Mozilla.
Chrome and Chromium have a massive 70% of browser share worldwide! Why? Google pioneered the development of browsers.
Google uses special code in Chrome and Chromium to speed up loading its own services, which are practically everywhere from Google Search to YouTube to Gmail to Google Maps!
Furthermore, Chrome and Chromium have the benefit of being supported by a tech giant and all its resources! Google developed many important web standards, such as using USB and Bluetooth in web. Then, Google was the first to implement these features through Chrome and Chromium.
To make matters worse, Google has either paid or made agreements with other tech giants to make Chrome the default browser or at least one of the pre-installed browsers on all mainstream devices!
Who could possibly compete against a tech giant with so many resources and an already established browser?
Most companies don’t bother! Since Chromium is open source, other companies developing their own browsers can simply use the Chromium browser engine and build features on top! That’s a lot easier than building a browser engine from scratch!
Only Mozilla dares compete against Google with their Firefox browser. Firefox is the only significant competitor that has managed to maintain a well-functioning browser engine!
Firefox is the only reason why the browser engine market is a duopoly and not Google’s monopoly!
Read more about how Google is taking over the web in our article here!
Open Source Breeds Choice!
The reason we can choose among so many different browsers is Chromium and Firefox are both open source! This open source nature allows developers to focus on improving user experience as opposed to spending vast amounts of time and money making something, a browser engine, that has already been made!
Microsoft’s Edge and Opera are just Chromium with a bunch of modifications and features changes.
Brave is also based on Chromium, but it does incorporate significant changes for privacy and security such as ad block and fingerprinting resistance.
Given Chrome and Chromium’s dominant market share, web developers have made sure that their sites work with the Chrome/Chromium browser engine. As such, most browser developers choose to build on the browser engine that works with the majority of sites.
Firefox does have some browsers too!
Most notably, the Tor Browser is based on Firefox, but of course with heavy changes to ensure compatibility with the Tor Network and to increase anonymity.
LibreWolf is in between mainstream Firefox and the Tor Browser. LibreWolf attempts to provide a privacy and security respecting experience as similar to the Tor Browser as possible but without going to the extent of using the Tor Network.
Therefore, the open source nature of Chromium and Firefox has allowed developers to create different browsers with different features, and we have the freedom to choose which we like best!
Pros and Cons
As good as the open source nature of Chromium and Firefox can be, there are still issues with the browser market structure.
While users do have the freedom to choose different browsers with different features, there are still many components of browsers that remain the same. Given the duopoly of browser engines, one could say that the freedom of choice perceived by users is really an illusion of choice; that is to say differences among browsers are really much more limited than users believe.
Google made Chromium open source not just because of their generosity, but because they knew they could take advantage of its mass adoption by other browser projects to extend their influence over the web in general!
By controlling the browser engine, Google can ensure that their services and ads run smoothly, even if you are using Edge, Opera, or Brave instead of Chrome
Besides, a duopoly is intrinsically dangerous not just to the free market but also to the software ecosystem. Suppose a security vulnerability is discovered in the Chromium browser engine. Then, every browser using the Chromium browser engine would also vulnerable! That’s 70% of the market whose cybersecurity could be compromised by a single point of failure!
However, the duopoly has had its benefits. Google’s browser standards, while implemented with arguably monopolistic goals in mind, have helped significantly advance the development of the web. Plus, web developers have a much simpler job adapting their sites to work on just two browser engines as opposed to say ten.
All in all, there are pros and cons to the current browser market structure. The open source nature undoubtedly provides beneficial freedom of choice in terms of features, but the browser engines remain the same two across nearly all browsers. The duopoly gives a lot of power to the two companies that control the market — particularly Google with their dominant market share. However, this duopoly has allowed a greater ease of web development.
The choice is up to you to decide what browser you prefer, and also who you support in this ring of competitors.
