Mozilla Firefox: Google’s Chrome browser faces strong competition from Mozilla’s Firefox and, to a lesser extent, from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But as Chrome has become the undisputed king of digital marketing, those two have disappeared. Mozilla is now calling on Google and other companies to crack down on the anti-competitive practices that killed Firefox and reduced consumer choice.
Now, Mozilla has released research (via TechCrunch) that shows how Google, Apple, and Microsoft have used user consent to support their app ecosystems and browsers. Finally, Google makes the Chrome and Android browser, Apple makes Safari and macOS/iOS, and Microsoft makes Windows and Edge. To varying degrees, they persuade all users to choose their browsers and deliberately switch to other browsers with heavy integration and numerous warnings that prevent them from switching.
If you access Google in a browser other than Chrome, you’ll be prompted to download Chrome, and if you’re on Windows, you might already know Microsoft’s reluctance to use Edge. These efforts have had little success and have given users disloyalty to third parties such as Mozilla who have no such protection.
I don’t know if that’s the whole story of why Firefox hasn’t been popular as one of the best browsers, but Mozilla has one. Anti-competitive behavior is rampant in the browser industry and the problem is getting worse. It seems everyone is happy with Chrome, but the marketing design can be confusing for newcomers.
Regulators across Europe are hoping Big Tech will do more on the issue, so Google’s grip on the web browser doesn’t slip anytime soon.
Last week, Mozilla released another study on Google’s owner YouTube’s inefficiency and negative insights for user suggestions for video recommendations.
