Web browsers over the last 30 years
I was born before the world wide web. But I'll never forget when it arrived: Netscape, dial up connections and those clashes with Mum over the phone line, chat rooms, msn messenger, learning html and running java through a compiler to print "hello world"
I watched the web emerge and then take over. We can't imagine living without it. Although I can because I did live before it. It wasn't so bad by the way.
I created this data visualisation to tell this story. Even my kids who watched this related to it in some way. They recognised Chrome, and liked the look of the Firefox logo, which neither has seen before. They had no idea what Edge was.
Chrome is something they currently used and liked the look of the Firefox logo. They didn't know what Netscape was.An interesting browser that’s missing from the list is Brave. It either has gained enough market share to breakout of the “other” category, or it’s been included in the Chrome numbers, because it’s built of the Chromium platform. I’m not sure. It’s just an observation.
The power of disruption
The story that is being told here is the power of disruptive technology. Quite often we don’t actually notice when disruption is occurring. For instance, do you remember when mobile phones became commonplace?
Now mobile phones have become an indispensable utility just like the internet. We can’t think of living without both these technologies.
The web browser wars have raged for 30 years, yet many of us barely noticed.
I mean, whatever happened to Netscape? How did Internet Explorer once have over 90% of the browser market?
Well, Microsoft had a monopoly and got into trouble because it pre-bundled Internet Explorer with every copy of Microsoft Windows.
Chrome, as you can see, never managed to achieve this level of dominance. Ironically, there is a lot more competition these days. The emergence of Android smartphones and iPhones have broken Microsoft’s once dominant position.
The disruption continues.