Default Browser Follow-up

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

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Jason Warner wrote on 11/06/13 23:16:
> ...
> 
> 1. This is NOT about which browser is better.
> 
> 2. This is NOT about which browser has more features or X, Y or Z 
> feature.
> 
> 3. Openness and freedom are still part of our core values. However 
> I'd rather not turn this thread into a "who is more open/free" 
> debate.
> 
> What is important, and ultimately should be the deciding factor, is
> the common end user experience. Which browser, in the common case,
> will be the best for the general end user? Things I consider 
> relevant to this discussion are quality/stability/robustness,

As long as we can't compare error rates, any claim about
quality/stability/robustness will likely be anecdote.

(We can't compare error rates firstly because the error tracker
doesn't track errors in Firefox at all,
<http://launchpad.net/bugs/1064395> and even if it did, secondly it
doesn't know how much people have been using each browser. Without
taking hours of use into account, the error rate for any default
browser would dwarf that of any non-default one.)

> familiarity,

It's easy to forget: Switching from Firefox to Chromium would be
switching from a browser that most people have heard of, to a browser
that almost no-one has heard of.

If you did a survey, I predict that people who knew Chromium was a
legitimate browser would be outnumbered by those who assumed it was a
dodgy Chrome knockoff.

(This is one of the reasons we didn't switch to Midori in Ubuntu
10.10, or Epiphany before that: users wouldn't have known what they
were. A vicious cycle? Sure. But not our job to uncoil.)

> ease of use, and overall user experience.

They seem pretty much equal at this point.

> The secondary case to consider is web developers. I firmly believe 
> that web developers would use both browsers on a regular basis, 
> though do they generally prefer one browser to another? I don't 
> consider this case to be a deciding factor, but rather could push 
> one over the top if there isn't a clear front runner.

I have no idea which browser is preferred by Web developers, and I
understand Web developers are important. But I don't understand why
you're singling them out. Of all the market segments we could be
interested in, Web developers would be among the most likely to
install multiple browsers regardless, so they'd be among the *least*
likely to be swayed by a default browser choice.

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