Once upon a time...

The history of web browsers is convoluted, fascinating, and bellicose. Mosaic was the first widely used web browser, developed at the University of Illinois in 1993. Mosaic was later overthrown by Netscape, a very popular web browser that Microsoft saw as a major threat [1]. Netscape redefined both the web browser and the World Wide Web by implementing several features such as cookies, frames, and JavaScript. In response to Netscape's rising popularity, Microsoft released the abominable Internet Explorer (IE), which was based on the original Mosaic.

IE is one of the worst (if not the worst) things that have ever happened to the Web. Microsoft's lack of vision and greediness led the company to implement all sorts of ill-flavored tactics, such as forbidding desktop manufacturers from uninstalling and replacing IE with Netscape. Also, Microsoft basically amalgamated IE into Windows. IE was full of bugs, security issues, and had so many flaws that a whole book can be written about the matter. [2]


Browser War by Browserling

In 1998 Netscape created the Mozilla Corporation, intending to create a suite that could kill Internet Explorer. The name Mozilla is a wordplay on the words Mosaic and Godzilla; hence, Mozilla is Internet Explorer's killer (remember I said Internet Explorer was based on Mosaic?).

The Mozilla suite would later become Firefox, which still has a special place in my heart.

The arrival of Google Chrome


Google Chrome's release was absolutely revolutionary. In 2008 Google announced and released what would become the greatest and best web browser in history [3]. Chrome set the bar higher than anyone would've ever imagined. It was literally faster, better, and stronger. I'd say that Chrome was at least 10 years ahead of all its competitors in terms of its performance and features.

Chrome introduced several groundbreaking features, such as:

  • A cleaner user interface focused on navigation tabs.
  • Each tab has its own independent process: this way a tab could independently crash without affecting the others. This also allowed better management of resources and a safer browsing experience.
  • V8: The fastest Javascript¹ (JS) engine, even at the time of writing.
  • And on top of this, Chrome was released as an open-source product² [3].


Snapshot taken from Google's comic "Words by the Google Chrome team".

V8 by itself was also revolutionary and it was later used by Ryan Dahl to create Node.js; another trailblazing product that redefined the way modern web, mobile, and even crypto development is done.

Trends

Each browser had its hallmark and philosophy that resonated with users. This, in turn, facilitated their adoption or even defined new eras for the Web.

  • Mosaic: was the first massively used web browser.
  • Netscape: brought a bunch of new exciting features and was just better than Mosaic.
  • Internet Explorer: this was simply a catastrophe for the Web and the Internet.
  • Mozilla/Firefox: was faster, safer, and followed web standards.
  • Google Chrome: extraordinarily revolutionary and faster than any other browser ever; defined a new era for Modern Web Applications.

and little has happened after that... until now.

Third-Party 🍪's

Have you ever felt like you're being followed by ads across the web? You know... like when you're searching for that Roomba cleaner and suddenly you're all bombarded with Roomba ads everywhere you go?

Well, this is mainly possible due to third-party cookies. The concept is a bit complex to explain, but third-party cookies are pieces of text that advertisers (like Roomba) and third parties (like Google) place and store in your browser. These cookies are used to both follow you and show you ads on other websites you may visit. So, first of all, this is annoying.

The other problem with third-party cookies is that they allow big companies such as Facebook and Google to follow you wherever you go. With this information, Big Tech companies can create a profile of your persona and know who you are: your hobbies, political views, sexual orientation, preferences, your religion, your culture: you.

Bottom-line: third-party cookies are creepy, but they are also highly effective because they allow marketers to create highly targeted campaigns.

Privacy, Privacy, Privacy

Big-tech companies have been heavily scrutinized over the last years, based on several privacy-related concerns and scandals [4]. Also, new regulations such as GDPR³ were created in response to these concerns. Similarly, users are now more conscious and aware of their data, its intrinsic value, and how it's being commercialized.

Apple and Firefox have "taken advantage" of this and have strategically blocked third-party cookies in their browsers. Additionally, Apple has introduced a feature in iOS that prevents app developers (like Facebook) from tracking users. These moves hit much harder their competitors (Amazon, Facebook, and Google) since they have a greater dependency on the ads business.

Google Chrome is in denial

Google Chrome cannot easily let go of their precious cookies. Safari and Firefox started blocking third-party cookies gradually since 2013. Almost 10 years later, Google Chrome has still not blocked them by default. The reason for that is very simple: Google's main source of income is advertising through the ad networks and exchanges they run, which heavily rely on these cookies.

Nonetheless, Google will kill third-party cookies in late 2023, instead of January 2022 as originally planned. Why is Google discontinuing support third-party cookies? They don't have another choice. PRIVACY is the name of the game now.

Google is, however, looking for a way to replace third-party cookies. It seems like the "solution" for this will be "Topics": a new concept that basically will create a collection of interests based on users' recent browsing history. I don't think this necessarily solves the privacy problem, since I imagine these collections being used as a mechanism to enrich both advertisers' and publishers' first-party data or as an alternative or complementary way of profiling users.


Brave


And finally... in 2016 a new player entered the battlefield. Brave has set another milestone in the history of web browsers. Brave is a web browser based on Google Chrome's technology. While Brave did not necessarily release a major ground-breaking technology, it instead implemented a lot of exciting privacy and web3 native features that most of its competitors still lack, such as:

  • A native ad-blocker.
  • Third-party cookies are blocked by default.
  • Fingerprint Randomization⁴
  • Native support for IPFS.
  • An integrated crypto wallet
  • The disruptive "Basic Attention Token" or BAT.

Out of this list, the BAT token is probably the most innovative. Brave gives you crypto for virtually doing nothing. This is how it works: Brave allows you to optionally turn on and view non-invasive ads whenever you open a new tab. Advertisers (like crypto.com) need to acquire the BAT token to pay and show ads in Brave. Users (yes, you!) get paid in BAT tokens directly to their wallets due to the fact that they've spent some time seeing these ads.

Conclusion

So, is Google Chrome then dying? well... certainly not. At the time of writing Google Chrome has around 63% of web browsers market share [5], outplaying its competitors by at least x3 times or more. But that's not the point here. After reading this post you should've realized that each release of a successful web browser has also marked the beginning of a new era. 

As said before, this new era has been defined by privacy, data protection, and web3. Unfortunately, it seems like Chrome is still in denial and, in my opinion, it's also failing to read the market, the environment, and, ultimately, its users. Other players like Firefox and Safari have been gradually addressing some of the aforementioned privacy concerns and needs. Brave, on the other hand, has gone a step beyond and they have everything required to become the next Google Chrome... only time will tell.


Footnotes

¹ Javascript is a powerful programming language that allows websites to execute code. This makes them dynamic and interactable. It is thanks to JS that we have modern web applications such as Gmail, Spotify, iCloud, YouTube, Social Media, etc.

² Google Chrome was released as an Open Source project under the name Chromium [3]. This allows anyone to see and adapt its code and create new versions of the browser. This is exactly what Microsoft did with Microsoft Edge, which is a web browser based on Chromium. This is perhaps the best thing Microsoft has done for the web since Edge's release allowed Microsoft to finally ditch Internet Explorer.

³ As indicated on GDPR's website: "The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the toughest privacy and security law in the world... It imposes obligations onto organizations anywhere that target or collect data related to people in the EU...".

⁴ Fingerprinting is another creepy practice used by some advertisers or publishers to identify you. Based on your operating system, browser version, add-ons installed, the fonts available in your OS, etc. these individuals can create a fingerprint of your browser. Fingerprinting is more invasive than cookies since it doesn't require cookies at all to work. Fingerprinting Randomization is a solution for this problem that Brave and other browsers have implemented, which in-a-nut-shell deceives whoever is trying to fingerprint you.

References

[1],[2] Granneman, S. (2005). Don't click on the blue E!: Switching to firefox. O'Reilly & Associates.

[3] https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-chrome-new-take-on-browser_02.html

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html

[5] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share